Conference USA has rebounded a little bit after some really, really disturbing results last weekend. Still, the league just doesn’t look any better right now than it was a year ago, save East Carolina’s stunning victories over George Mason and N.C. State. If I were to re-rank the league right now, here’s how I’d slot the 12 teams (with newspaper links):

1. Memphis
2. Houston — Successfully navigated the easy part of its schedule at 9-1. The next month, however, will tell whether Houston can contend for an at-large NCAA bid with home games vs. Kentucky (Dec. 18) and Arizona (Jan. 12) and a trip to UMass in between (Jan. 2)
3. UTEP — The 5-2 record includes a season sweep over rival New Mexico State. If Tony Barbee’s team can sweep the rest of its non-conference schedule, which includes a home game against New Mexico (Jan. 2) and a trip to Texas Tech (Jan. 5), the Miners might be in position for an at-large heading into league play.
4. UAB — They’re 7-4 and supposedly playing a little better, but you’ll fail to find even one impressive win among the seven (and no, UAB fans, beating a horrendous Cincinnati team doesn’t count). No chance of an at-large, short of winning the C-USA regular season title outright. And unfortunately for UAB, even beating Kentucky next Saturday won’t help much this year.
5. Tulane — Scored a nice win over Gardner-Webb but has struggled away from home. Will play an interesting barometer game against St. Mary’s on Dec. 20 in the Rainbow Classic.
6. East Carolina — Got an actual quality win out of conference! Though they’re only 2-5, beating N.C. State will help the Pirates’ RPI stay afloat for a good long while.
7. Southern Miss — The official RPI numbers say 0-3 as the season record, but that’s only due to poor scheduling. USM has four wins, but they’re all over non-Division 1 teams. The three losses were at California (in a close one), at Alabama (in a very close one) and at South Alabama (not a terrible loss).
8. Central Florida — They’re not that bad, but they’re not very good either. If UCF was going to be a legitimate team this year, it would have beaten Ole Miss at home. Alas, UCF is just 4-4 and can’t close the deal against decent competition (see near misses against Kansas State and Villanova earlier).
9. Marshall — Winning at home (4-0), losing on the road (0-2), which is par for the course. But when you’re losing to East Tennessee State you’re probably in for a long season.
10. Tulsa — Doug Wojcik shouldn’t be on the hot seat yet, but Tulsa is by far the league’s biggest disappointment at 2-4.
11. SMU — Three straight wins is a big deal for SMU, which looked like it might not win a game in its four-game losing streak to start the season. Plus, they beat TCU in an all-important matchup of C-USA and MWC bottom-feeders.
12. Rice — At least they lost yesterday to a good team which is more than most of the league bretheren can say.