I’m sitting right in front of the student section, which means two things. One, it’s going to be very loud for me tonight. Two, if Tulane happens to win, I’m going to get the heck out of here or else get trampled. Really, though, I’m more worried about my rental car getting towed since I am not really sure if I parked in a legal space. They don’t have media parking here or really any other kind of parking on this campus. You just have to wing it.

I actually like this campus a lot; Uptown New Orleans is beautiful, and there was a great feel outside Fogelman tonight as people were coming in to the building.

It will be interesting to see the first five minutes of this game because that will tell us a lot about where the Tigers’ focus is tonight. I wouldn’t expect a great performance. Looking ahead to Tennessee is only natural; I’m sure Tennessee will have the same problem tonight. On the other hand, because of what happened at UAB it’s possible Memphis will be in the mood to take care of business.

Obviously, Shawn Taggart didn’t make the trip here, but it wasn’t because of his knee. It’s because of his broken nose. Team doctors didn’t feel like it was a good idea to get in an airplane and fly with the pressure, and I understand that. In fact, he didn’t even fly home from Birmingham with the team for that reason.

When I came into the arena tonight, by the way, I had a nice little chat with Pete Gillen. I mentioned to him that he’s become something of a cult hero in Memphis and that some fans even get upset when Steve Lappas is doing the games on CSTV. He laughed about that, but he definitely appreciated the love.