Tulane can tie the AAC record of 12 wins it set under Ron Hunter two years ago by winning at ECU, a place he's never won in five tries and his personal house of horrors. The double bye is still not a lock. If Tulane loses at ECU again and ECU wins at FAU on Sunday (FAU will be favored) and Tulane loses at home to UAB (UAB will be favored), the Wave would fall to the fifth seed and have to play next Thursday again the winner of the `12-13 game just to get to the quarterfinals of the tournament. But if Tulane wins both games, it will pass UAB for the No. 3 seed regardless of what UAB does tomorrow at home against FAU. That's the optimal position for the tournament because Tulane would avoid a potential semifinal against Memphis. Although North Texas is not a good matchup for Tulane either, the odds would be better of winning that game because North Texas has some days when it can't throw the ball in the ocean. Tulane has not lost two conference games in a row all year, so this would be a bad time to let it happen.

I talked to Ron Hunter, Rowan Brumbaugh and Percy Daniels today. I will transcribe the player interviews in a couple hours.

HUNTER

On what he can take from win at Tulsa:

"Well, they are going to be close and they are going to make their old coach even older, but we did find a way. We were playing so poorly early and then the light switch went off and we started defending. This group has just found a way to win and more importantly they've got confidence that they can win close games, and that's not the easiest thing to do. That's even a tough thing to do with veteran groups. They are confident they can win these close games now."

On clinching double bye with win:

"Again, we're looking forward. We think we have a chance to be the third seed. That's our deal now, and to be that third seed we've got to win this game. But again, if we don't next week's the tournament. I think we're in pretty good shape. Even if we lose the game, they have to go play at Florida Atlantic and they're playing for something also. There's a lot still to be playing. I'd rather have something to play for than have the guys thinking you just have to show up. That's not good."

On Daniels:

"What's great about Percy is Percy will give you exactly what you need, whatever that might be. If it's rebounding, if it's Gregg (Glenn)'s in foul trouble, you gotta go play. That's what's been great about Percy. Now the minutes are a big thing for him. Sustaining those kind of minutes for him is tough, but he was great. He's been like that in practice. I wasn't even surprised about the scoring because we see him do those things. Percy has sacrificed his game to make us better."

On Daniels not being frustrated with role despite being high-rated prospect three years ago:

"Absolutely. The best student-athlete and the best teammate that you can have. His leadership has been great. I haven't had a player in this program that has not liked Percy. He's just that kind of guy. At the end of the game when everybody talked about that was Percy's career high, you would have thought we'd just won a national championship. They were running and hugging him and those kinds of things. Everybody wants great things to happen for Percy."

On key against ECU:

"We've got to make shots. For probably about 35 minutes of that game defensively we were really good, and so if we bring that same defense, which we've been doing. Even in the Tulsa game, the defense wasn't there early but at some point it was able to come up and win the game. It's going to do the same thing. They've got two really good scorers, so we've got to make sure defensively we keep doing what we're doing."

On balanced offense with four guys in double figures and Kam Williams close:

"It makes it hard because you don't know who you are going to key on. For a while Kaleb (Banks) was struggling and people started worrying about what Rowan was doing. Now all of a sudden Kaleb has picked it up again and the consistency with Gregg. What's great about this year is it's been a team effort on both sides of the floor. Offensively it's been a different player each night. It's just been a great team atmosphere and a great team building in regards to winning."

On Glenn playing well with four fouls this year:

"In all aspects Gregg's just growing. He's growing up in front of our eyes. Early I played him with two fouls in the first half to get him to this. The experience of some of the things we had early, we're able to do that. And even if he gets his third early or fouls out, Percy can finish the game."

Key point here is that the ACC GoR and conference exit fee allegedly drops to below $100M in 2030, the same year the current B1G and Big 12 deals expire, setting the stage for another round of conference realignment.

The pieces at play are that the B1G and SEC are allegedly collaborating to secure four autobids each in 16 team expanded CFP. Methods of collaboration include syncing conference schedules at either eight or nine games, each creating a conference tournament play-in for the autobids on conference championship weekend, and the two conferences scheduling one or two annual cross-conference games at the beginning of the season. Ideally the SEC and B1G would be at the same number of schools, whether that is 18 or 20.

The podcast I posted at the bottom claims from a B1G source that “everyone already knows” who the ACC would take as backfill, and those schools have already been vetted and approved by ESPN. Source did not say who these schools are, but the host believes USF is the ACC’s top target should FSU leave, and Memphis and Tulane are next.

UNC is allegedly a top target for ESPN in the SEC. So much so that they’d move NC State as well, if the two cannot be separated for political reasons. B1G is interested in FSU, Miami and ND. Not interested in Clemson. ESPN has a vested interest in keeping the ACC viable, as they own and have made significant investment into the ACCNetwork and have a favorable TV deal with current members. They will not simply let schools walk to Fox/CBS/NBC and the B1G. The $100M exit fees should be enough of a deterrent to keep most of the schools to receive the financial windfall of those exit fees, but low enough where UNC, Clemson, FSU and Miami could pay it if they want to.

If Tulane is in fact one of these schools that ESPN has already approved as backfill, these next few years will be crucial building the athletic department to put us in the best position for ACC backfill.

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Let's be honest, Pepperdine is not a good team. Still, while many of our fans treated this weekend as a sure sweep for the Wave (not the Waves), I had some concerns. Clearly, the Pepperdine team has little offense based on its season so far, but I was concerned about their best pitchers. Going into the Tulane series, their three weekend starters and two key relievers had a combined ERA of 2.97. The rest of the team compiled a 10.01 ERA. Unfortunately, we’ve only seen two of their starters and their best two relievers. They’ve dominated us and only allowed two runs in 18 innings (1.00 ERA). We’ve been unable to get to the weak part of their staff. Hopefully today will be different. Their starter has a 2.89 ERA through 9.1 innings but hasn’t gone beyond 4 innings in any of his two starts and one relief appearances. We need to knock him out early and get to their bullpen. While I think the pitching we’ve seen so far has been good, our hitting has dropped off the cliff this weekend. Gotta turn that around and also get a good pitching performance from our guys. Back to my first sentence, Pepperdine is NOT a good team. Losing two out of three to them, let alone the possibility of being swept, is totally unacceptable.

Roll Wave!!!