Here's the link

Link

Whether or not this was a pre-planned thing, it's as if Tulane goes out of its way to hurt its own attendance.

4-2 in the AAC or not, there just isn't that much demand for Tulane basketball right now. I can't imagine too many people in New Orleans deciding to walk up to the SMU game for $30 a pop. And it's not like the opponent will bring in people. The Mustangs are really good, but they have zero cache.

And $50 for UConn. Where is this fan base for Tulane basketball to justify a price like that for a defending national champion that probably is no better than fourth or fifth in the AAC this year?

This from Tammy at Nola. com. I'm checking into it.

This post was edited on 1/20 11:24 AM by Guerry Smith

Link

The big Defensive Tackle, John Washington from West Monroe, has committed to Tulane. This is one more DT than I expected, but I think its a good "get." But, as I suspected, Quan Shorts was just taking a vacation to visit family and friends. He just tweeted about five minutes ago that he was 100% committed to Texas Tech.

At this point, I'd love to get the kicker and Hunter Register, the WR, who hopefully will visit soon. Lots of other needs but we filled up the class with defensive backs early-- something I don't understand. Whatever...

Roll Wave!!!

Tulane has 10 players come in for visits, six who are already committed and four who are uncommitted.

First, the uncommitted:

1) Foster Moreau, TE, Jesuit

Moreau has a visit set up with LSU on the final weekend and likely will wait until then to see if the Tigers make him an offer, but Tulane gets its crack this weekend. At the very least, the Wave can become his No. 2 behind LSU with a good weekend. He also has an offer from Mississippi State among others.

2) Hunter Register, WR, Lafayette Comeaux

Register does not have any stars from Rivals.com but reportedly has offers from Memphis, Minnesota, Indiana, ULL, ULM and Tulane. He is 6-4, 192 pounds, and visited Minnesota in October. His brother plays basketball for ULL, but Register, a two-sport star in high school, has said he is not interested in basketball for college. He took an unofficial visit to Tulane for the Georgia Tech game. The Wave needs wide receivers badly.

3) Furquan Shorts, WR, Humble, Texas

Shorts, a three-star recruit, already has committed to Texas Tech, but the Wave will get a chance to sway him this weekend. He runs the 400 in track and sees himself as an outside receiver.

4) Bennett Moehring, punter, Bentonville, Ark

Tulane lists Moehring as a punter. He also has offers from Navy, Cornell, UMass and Dartmouth and preferred walk-on offers from Missouri and California. He is rated a five-star kicker by Kohl's and a 4 1/2 star punter.

And the six commitments:

5) Keeyon Smart
6) Brian Webb
7) Malik Eugene
8) Darius Black
9) Chaz Key
10) Andrew Hicks

I do not usually get the Times Picayune but I purchased Sunday's paper. I found the lack of coverage of Tulane athletics awful. Front page is mostly LSU with pictures. Recruiting is nothing but the same school. Tulane is mentioned on page eight. What gives? Tulane is battling for top spot in basketball and has a big weekend for future football players. The paper seems to be for only one Louisiana school and rest can fend for themselves. Roll Wave

Guerry is there any word on who is going to take the coaching spot left open by Sumrall's departure? Thanks.

I talked to Lou Dabney, Jay Hook and Ed Conroy today for the first time since Wednesday's nights heartbreaking loss to UCF. Here's what they had to say.

DABNEY

What is your takeaway from a game like that?

"Obviously it's not a good feeling that we lost a tough game like that, but there were a lot of positives you could take away from the game. We all felt like we should have won that game, but we didn't, so we're just moving on to the next game."

You really struggled defensively to stop them from penetrating to the basket, particularly on the same high pick and roll. Can you put your finger on what went wrong there?

"We just had a mental breakdown guarding the pick and rolls. It was nothing different that they were doing that other teams weren't doing to us. We just had a mental lapse. We'll be better for the next one."

How do you make sure that there's no carry-over effect from losing in triple overtime?

"It just starts with today's practice. We all need to bring it physically and mentally and be ready to have a great practice, and that will solve itself when we play Houston."

Did you take yesterday off?

"We watched film and we did weights and recovery. We weren't feeling ready to get up and down the court, but today we're going to get up and down the court and fix the problems we had the last game."

Could you have imagined making 16 3s in a game and not coming away with the win?

"That's real crazy. At the end of the game I didn't even realize how many 3s me and Hook hit. When we checked it out, we were like, whoa, we broke the school record."

Are there positives you can take away from that type of shooting? It wasn't just making tough shots. You guys were moving the ball really well to get open looks.

"I just think we need to stick to our principles and just play with more energy. The offense comes back and solves itself when we bring the energy, move the ball and play through each other."

Houston is struggling after having its two best players transfer with the coaching chance to Kelvin Sampson, but the Cougars attempt 27 3s a game. Is that the biggest challenge, guarding them on the perimeter?

"The challenge with Houston is they take a lot of 3s and just guarding them and having to extend our defense because they all can shoot the 3. Our biggest challenge will be taking away those good 3s from those guys."

Have you ever played a triple overtime game before?

"Once in AAU, but it was nothing like that. That was a lot different. I was tired and I was just trying to fight through."

Stark looked like he still had a lot of energy at the game. Does his energy amaze you?

"Yeah, it's crazy how much shape that guy is. His energy, it's good to have somebody like that on your team."

HOOK

It appeared to be only a matter of time before you had a big shooting night, and you hit seven 3s against UCF. How good did it feel to get that rhythm back?

"It felt real good. I just had it going."

If somebody had told you before the game the team would hit 16 3s, I think you would have thought you would blow them out. How tough is to lose a game like that?

"I'm going to go against the grain against the little bit and say it's an amazing feeling because of how we played. We haven't had that crazy of a game yet. It was a great learning experience for us. We got a learning experience out of that game, and the younger guys stepped up. It was a great experience for them but a bad feeling at the end."

Did you feel while the game was going on that it would be a special game?

"Yeah, when it got to the second one (overtime) I was like, we ended halftime with the same score, we ended regulation with the same score and I was like man, this is not going to be an easy game."

How do you make sure that the loss doesn't linger?

"Just use the experience in the next game and not worry about the outcome of the last one. We did the best we could. If we played bad and then that happened, it would be one thing. It shouldn't linger much. We just use it as we should have won that game, let's get this one."

What happened in the overtime period when you took the 60-foot shot with seven seconds left in a tie game?

"When I contested (UCF's) shot, I thought there was only maybe like three seconds left. Then I looked up at the clock when I got the ball and I saw one (second). I was looking at the shot clock (which had not reset after UCF's miss). I realized (the mistake) as soon as I let it go. I tried to pull it back, and I was like, damn. Good thing they didn't hit a shot (after getting the ball back when it sailed out of bounds), though."

So you don't think there will be any problem bouncing back, either mentally or physically?

"I don't think so. We're a tough team. We've got tough guys. We're going to keep it going."

Memphis beat Cincinnati last night by 13 at home. You guys won at Memphis basically without Dabney. When you see a result like that, does that validate what you have done?

"Yeah. In this conference anybody can beat anybody. Knowing that, I expect us to finish in the top three."

CONROY

What were your impressions off of that loss?

"A lot of positives as far a how aggressive we were and how we rose to the moment, making big plays. Obviously the offense, I don't think there's anybody who had a subpar performance on the offense end for the entire team, but unfortunately you can say the same thing about their team, and lot of that had to do defensively with we got ourselves caught up in a shootout, and we have to be better than that mentally to be able to make the adjustments on the floor. We were trying to make them from the bench, but we just weren't able to execute them out there on the floor."

It looked like they ran the same high pick and roll a lot and you couldn't stop them from getting to the basket.

"They got into the paint in two or three different ways. One just right off the drive, two the high pick and roll. I'm not sure what adjustments there are other than just getting down in a stance and guarding the ball. That's what it came down to a lot of times, where we had the right coverages and the commitment on that end of the floor needs to be greater."

You set a school record for 3s in a game and still lost. How frustrating is that?

"We've always prided ourselves on when we have a performance like that on the offensive end, we're going to get the W. I'm not pleased at all with that. I credit them. They were on that night, and sometimes really good offense beats good defense, but there were enough breakdowns, and especially early in the game we gave them a lot of confidence because we let them get to the rim."

The key is not to let it linger physically and mentally. How do you make sure the guys recover right away?

"We have to keep focused on getting better, and in order to do that we have to acknowledge what that was. Again, there were some great positives. I love the fact that we had guys rise up to make plays and were fearless and those type of things, but at the same time we have to acknowledge that we had a letdown on the defensive end."

Houston is struggling in Kelvin Sampson's first year, but it takes a ton of 3s. What concerns you the most about the Cougars?

"Dangerous team offensively, especially at home. You look at the conference, and they've played Memphis twice already. Their schedule hasn't done them any favors. They are a team that is very capable of winning games in this league and I think they will, but for us to be successful going in there we are going to have to really defend a lot better."

How much did you change practice yesterday to give guys some time to recover?

"We didn't do much yesterday. We just stayed with the weights and got our bodies back going. Obviously you worry about where our guys are from a physical standpoint because it was a three-game week to begin with (South Florida on Sunday, UCF on Wednesday, Houston on Saturday). We had one overtime game already and then we had a triple overtime game, so we've played four overtimes. That's an extra half."

Jonathan Stark looked fresh in triple overtime when everybody else on both teams looked dead. What kind of shape is he in?

"Jonathan's a guy, and especially he came up with some big steals toward the end. He was playing. Those are the positives for me. We didn't execute defensively, but how hard we played and how we competed is a positive."

Just got it confirmed.

This is the first time since 2010 that Tulane has not had a new player in spring drills. The list started with tight end Josh Drum in 2011 (remember him?), then Jordan Batiste in 2012, Mike Lizanich (and Nick Montana) in 2013 and Junior Diaz and Teddy Veal in 2014.

Yes, I forgot all about it, which is why this is going up more than a month after the last week of the season.

Just to rub it in, dew99 extended his big lead in the standings by crushing us in the final week, getting 8 points while no one else got more than 5. Well done. Don't think anyone has won pick 'em by double digits dating back to the Kushner era.

First, the week 12 results:

dew99 8
winwave 5
Guerry Smith 5
golfer81 5
MNAlum 4
jjstock2005 4
LSU Law Greenie 4
GretnaGreen 4
DrBox 4
WaveON 3
ny oscar 3
St. Amant Wave 3
captcrown1 3
Rcnut 3
Wavetime 2

NOW THE FINAL STANDINGS, dropping the lowest score for the 11 contestants who picked every week

1) dew99 64

2T) DrBox 53

2T) Gretna Green 53

2T) Golfer81 53 (missed 1 week)

5T) LSU Law Greenie 50

5T) WaveON 50

7) jjstock2005 49

8T) St. Amant Wave 47

8T) MNAlum 47 (missed 1 week)

10) captcrown1 46

11) winwave 45

12) ny oscar 42 (missed 1 week)

13) Guerry Smith 40 (missed 1 week)

14) Wavetime 39

15) Rcnut 36

Thanks for entering nearly every week, guys. It made the pick 'em more fun. Next year, maybe Tulane will cover more than three times and help most of our scores.



















This post was edited on 1/14 12:15 PM by Guerry Smith

I missed it when the AAC released its All-Preseason team and coaches' picks in late December.

No Tulane player made the All-Conference team, and the coaches had the Wave sixth out of eight teams. The order:

1) Houston (6)
2) UCF (2)
3) East Carolina
4) UConn
5) South Florida
6) Tulane
7) Memphis
8) Cincinnati

Interestingly, Cincy outfielder Ian Happ was preseason player of the year. USF's Jimmy Herget was pitcher of the year.

I just posted a Q&A with Ed Conroy from Monday on the front page.

This game worries me after Tulane's scare with South Florida. Although UCF (211) is rated lower at RealtimeRPI.com than South Florida, the Knights are playing better in the conference. They are 1-3, but their losses were to Tulsa 56-54, Temple 84-78 and SMU 70-61. Those are respectable scores, and Tulsa has since won at Temple and cruised past Connecticut at home to remain unbeaten in the league. Tulane will have to play much, much better than it did Sunday to beat this team.

The good news, although it is a small sample size, is the Wave has been better on the road than at home this year. It led wire to wire at Loyola (Ill), which has an inflated RPI of 50 and whose only other losses were to top 25 teams Michigan State, Northern Iowa and Wichita State. It hung with Washington until the final minutes, although the Huskies have lost four in a row since then. It won at ECU and Memphis.

Here's what Lou Dabney and Jonathan Stark said Monday about Tulane's early road prowess:

DABNEY

"Our intensity picks up a lot more knowing that we're on the road. For some odd reason we have a lot more energy on the road than we have at home. We just get after you even more."

STARK

"We're all locked in, we enjoy being around each other, we have no problems with this team, we all stick together and that's how we take it on the road. We have way more energy and we're more hungry to beat somebody at their place."

UCF leads the AAC in 3-point shooting percentage by a wide margin (.377), a trademark of coach Donnie Jones' teams. He was an assistant to Billy Donovan at Marshall and Florida before becoming a head coach, so Tulane will have to be alert on the perimeter. The Knights have size, too, but they don't use it very well, ranking last in the league in rebounding margin. The Wave should have a huge edge in ball handling, as UCF is last in turnover margin while Tulane is tied for third.

UCF owned Tulane in Conference USA, winning the last six games in the series. If this Tulane team is truly different from past editions, the Wave should find a way to win tonight and improve to 4-1. Struggling Houston, which has been the worst team in the conference, is next, and Tulane needs to be 5-1 before it hits a string of tough games --SMU, Memphis and Tulsa at home, at Temple, UConn at home and at Cincinnati.

As for the conference as a whole, it is really down this year. I can make a case that Conference USA last year was a strong at the top as the AAC is this year, and Tulsa is making it for me. After stinking up the joint a year ago in non-conference action, Tulsa tied for the CUSA title at 13-3 and won the league tournament. After stinking up the joint this year in non-conference action (losing to Southeast Oklahoma State among others, Tulsa is 4-0 in the AAC with wins at Temple and at home against UConn. Tulsa has two terrific players in Shaq Harrison and James Woodard and everyone else is a role player.

Defending national champion UConn, which lost four starters, is simply not that good. When Ryan Boatwright shoots well, the Huskies can beat a lot of teams, but when he shoots poorly, they are in trouble.

To me, SMU is the most complete team in the league and will be a terrible matchup for Tulane, but that's down the road. Cincinnati will be a tough matchup, too, because Tulane will really struggle to score in the paint against those guys, but the Bearcats are offensively challenged. Temple competes well and has good athletes but is small and can't shoot straight.

Those are the top five teams in the league. I'm still not convinced the AAC, which remains virtually invisible in the AP top 25 voting (SMU received one vote), will get more than its tournament winner in the NCAA tournament, but that could change. SMU, Cincinnati, Temple and UConn all have a shot if they build their resumes. Tulsa has next to no at-large shot because of its pitiful non-conference performance but may well win the league.

Tulane needs to win as many games as it can and see where that gets it. It's still too early to talk about where the Wave can finish because there isn't enough information, but finishing above. 500 would be an accomplishment. The last time the Wave did it was 2007, when it went 9-7 in CUSA. The previous time was 1997, when it went 11-3.









This post was edited on 1/14 2:30 PM by Guerry Smith

Guerry- Any word on official visits this weekend? Or, for that matter, the rest of the month?


Thanks!!

CJ and his staff have not made inroads on top recruits in their four-year tenure, something that is incredibly hard to do in programs that are outside the power five conferences, but when St. Aug junior tight end Jamal Pettigrew committed to LSU today, he said Tulane was his second choice.

That's a start. He is a four-star guy with offers from Florida and Tennessee among others beside LSU. If Tulane has a winning season next fall, maybe, just maybe, a couple of big-timers will decide to play for CJ.

If you didn't see Tulane's 56-51 OT win against South Florida, count yourself as lucky. It was impossibly ugly, and Tulane did just about everything possible to lose in regulation after building a 12-point lead with 12 minutes left.

Still, a win is a win, and teams don't play the same way every game. The Wave played terrific on the road against Memphis despite losing Lou Dabney less than two minutes into the game with a high ankle sprain. Today, they would have totally without Dabney, who shot 8 of 12 and scored a season high 25 points while his teammates went 7 for 33, with none of them reaching double figures.

Dabney was by far the best player on the court for either team today after going 4 of 17 from the floor four days earlier against Temple.

Tulane will finish no better than 6-12 in the AAC if it plays as poorly the rest of the way as it did today, but there's no reason to think this was any more of an indication of Tulane' future than the impressive win at Memphis. Jonathan Stark had a stinker for the ages, going 0 of 6 from the floor and missing the front end of a one-and-one in the final minute that led to a go-ahead USF basket for its first lead since 2-0. Stark redeemed himself--sort of--by hitting the second of two free throws to tie the score, but he was so bad, Ed Conroy left him on the bench for the first three minutes of overtime in favor of struggling freshman Keith Pinckney.

"I've never done that," Conroy said. "He wasn't feeling well. I think maybe dehydration was part of it because he wasn't feeling great. He got real weak fast. I probably played him too much early. I did something I've never done. Give him credit because he finished the game, but I've never done that my entire coaching career. It's like pulling your closer in baseball. You send your starting point guard out there for overtime. I felt we weren't going to win the game (if Stark went out there), so we stole some minutes and Keith played really well that stretch. Jonathan handled it with maturity by being able to come back in, and I let him know after the game it won't affect him going forward, but that was just one of those calls you have to make."

It was a smart move by Conroy because Stark was killing Tulane at the end. He had to be feeling the effects of something because he did not look right. Incredibly, he followed his AAC Player of the Week honors by scoring a total of three points in two games this week, although he had 12 assists against Temple.

Tulane had to win this game. I know it can be an overreaction to say one game was this significant, but I believe the season would have been over if USF had won today. The confidence would have been drained out of this team. Now, the Wave can reflect on its offensive ineptitude as a winning team rather than one coming off a dismal loss heading into winnable road games against UCF and Houston.

Stark definitlely will play better. Jay Hook, who hit a huge 3 from about 25 feet in OT, is due for a breakout performance behind the arc because he's too good a shooter to remain mired in a slump. Dylan Osetkowski, who took one shot in 24 minutes but hit three free throws out of four, is capable of more.

I still don't know what to make of this team. It showed good toughness again to rebound in OT after its dreadful finish but needed help from USF even to get to overtime. The games against UCF, which is 1-3 in the AAC but has played everyone tough, and Houston, which is 0-4 and pretty much awful, will reveal more. UCF has good size and good 3-point shooting but not much else. Tulane should be able to win the turnover battle and dominate at the free throw line like it did today. But it was tough watching Dabney give everything he had while everyone else looked like they wanted no part of shooting the ball or making a play other than Hook.

With the "dead period" ending January 14th, college football recruiting for 2015 looks to finish up soon. Starting next week, three weekends remain in which colleges across the country, including Tulane, will host "official visits" for their recruits. Tulane will undoubtedly host all of our "commits" plus several more who could sign with the Wave on signing day. Who these kids are and when they will visit is the first big question to be answered.

The next question is how many we'll sign early and join the team for this semester and spring practice. I have heard nothing to suggest any of our commits plans to do such.

Another unknown is how many we'll sign on signing day. Most people seem to think it will be in the 18-21 range. But beyond the number of openings we actually have, CJ may decide to hold off on one or two slots because he doesn't see any player he thinks can help, especially considering the very small class expected next year. Or, he may choose to save a couple for someone who falls through the cracks on signing day or a summer transfer who can help immediately. We'll know better in a little over three weeks.

Next, of course is who we'll pursue and sign. Some thoughts:

Kicker/Punter. Several of the recruiting sites and kicking gurus link Tulane to one guy, Bennett Moehring, from Bentonville, Arkansas. He attended numerous camps run by Chris Sailer and Kohl's Kicking Camps. He was rated #1 in the nation by Sailer and #8 by Kohl as a kicker and #34 and #41 respectively as a punter. There are several other kickers who finished ahead of him at Kohl's camps who did not participate at Sailer's, but, regardless, he appears to be one of the better kickers available and a pretty solid punter also. If we don't sign someone like him it means one of three things: 1) CJ is satisfied with what he has; 2) CJ doesn't think anyone is available to Tulane that is better than what he has; or 3) CJ simply doesn't want to spend another scholarship on a kicker/punter. We'll see.

Wide Receiver. We've only got five scholarship wide receivers counting our one commitment. Most teams carry at least eight. Of course, including current commitments, we've got as many as 19 DB's depending on how you count. A couple of them could probably be moved to WR. Also, Badie, Hilliard, and/or Glenn could spend more time "in the slot" to reduce the dependence on true WR's. Regardless, it will be interesting to see if we sign another one or two. Most of the top WR's in the state are committed but a few remain. Depending on his actual situation with Nebraska, Stanley Morgan is obviously the most highly regarded recruit with Tulane on his radar. He'd be a great "get" in my view. I don't even necessarily think he's better than several others still "on the market," but CJ needs to sign more "high profile" kids to help with future recruitment. Next to winning, the view among the state's elite players that Tulane is a viable option could really help recruiting.

Defensive End. Tulane only has one truly experienced DE returning in LaFrance. And, to be honest, he's not been that consistent. Our other returning DE's have limited experience and were even more inconsistent when they had the opportunity. Can we find someone better in the next three weeks who can help out? A big question in my mind.

Tight End. We've got four tight ends returning, but one, London, is in his last year and has slipped off of the depth chart. Another, Ardoin, while highly thought of as a recruit, fell behind his other two classmates and was "redshirted." If Foster Moreau signs with LSU in the end, I doubt we'll sign someone else. It's not a "desperate" need. But, if he's available and interested, I'd think we'd go for it. Quarterback. Unless we sign a JC player or fifth year graduate student, we're probably not going to sign a QB who can come in and play right away. But, we've only got three on scholarship and 4-5 is the norm for most schools. We shouldn't sign anyone who we don't see as a future starter, but if we find such, I'd like to see it.

Other Positions. Other than Offensive Line where we simply have too many "bodies" to afford any more, I don't see any overriding needs. That's not to say that better players aren't available than what we have on our roster, it's just that from a priority standpoint, the above positions seem to be more important in my mind. That said, if we can sign any of the higher profile Louisiana kids who are available, or turn others from current FBS commitments, I'd do it regardless of position. We need kids, coaches, and fans in Louisiana to see Tulane as an "up and coming" team where a kid can look his high school classmates in the face and say I'm going to Tulane. And they respond, "that's terrific. They are signing a lot of great players."
An important few weeks for CJ and Tulane football.

Roll Wave!!!

No one can deny that Tulane's basketball team is much better this year than last. Last season we ended with an RPI of 224 having not beaten any team with an RPI of 150 or better.

As it stands today, our RPI is 136 and we've already beaten two teams, Memphis (#142) and Loyola-Chicago (surprisingly at #46) with current RPI's better than 150. Of course, those may change considerably over the rest of the year.

Looking at our remaining schedule, we play six games against three teams with RPI's in the 200+ range. In fact, the next three games are against those teams. The other remaining nine games are against teams with current RPI's better than ours. I would expect us to win some of those games based on how we are playing, but we cannot afford to drop games to clearly inferior squads. At least during conference, we didn't even do that last season.

Winning these three games won't do a lot for our RPI, but losing any of them will hurt. Winning all six games against these teams would get us to 17 wins and another trip to a "buy in" tournament as a minimum. Who knows? Three more wins against better RPI teams could get us to 20 wins and, though I think it unlikely, maybe an outside shot at the NIT.

Roll Wave!!!

Tulane offered Shreveport Cavalry cornerbacks Leele Rodarius Williams and Andraez Williams.

Andraez Williams has offers from LSU and Alabama among others and is listed as a three-star recruit.

Rodarius Williams has offers from Mississippi State and Utah and is a three-star recruit.

That's what I'm hearing from a reliable source.

They all need to be DEs or WRs unless they're planning on moving a few of the DBs that have committed to WR. This part did not come from a source. It's just common sense and class balance.

...Feb. 18, the day after Mardi Gras.

That's no surprise, but it will be later than last year, when Tulane was done before the end of February.

This post was edited on 1/9 4:44 PM by Guerry Smith

I have no idea what will happen tonight because I have no idea whether Memphis is any good this year and I don't know how good Temple is, either. Haven't seen one second of their games this year. Although the Owls have won five in a row, including the ultra-impressive 25-point rout of Kansas, they shoot 38 percent from the floor, the worst figure in the AAC and 326th out of 345 D1 teams. They take a lot of 3s and miss most of them, relying on forcing turnovers and their ball security to get more shots off than their opponents.

But here are a few thoughts, with a trip down memory lane.

1) Temple will always have special relevance to me because that was the game that signaled Perry Clark's program had arrived for sure. In 1991-92, Tulane won its first 13 games, including an OT road win against a good but not great Louisville team that was coming off a 14-16 year, before having the streak stopped by Texas Tech (the Wave must have been on WWL radio back then because I remember listening to the game from Florida).

A week later, after beating VCU in OT, Tulane returned home and crushed Temple 99-75 at the height of the posse's effectiveness. That's when I knew the Wave finally would make the NCAA tournament, although it got hairy during a five-game losing streak spanning the end of February and the beginning of March. Temple, coached by John Chaney, was NCAA tourney bound, too (and ended up as a No. 11 seed in the same region Tulane was a No. 10 seed, playing national championship game destined Michigan instead of the dysfunctional St. John's team the Wave got at the end of Lou Carnesecca's tenure). It was an absolute shellacking, with Tulane's press causing a series of turnovers that led to runout dunks (or so I remember from press accounts; I wasn't there).

During Clark's glory years, Tulane really never beat a good team as badly as it did Temple that day. and in some ways, the Wave never quite lived up that promise, reaching the NCAA tournament three times, winning a game there each time but never being a legitimate top 25 team by the end of those seasons. I remember thinking Tulane could go the Final Four after its hot start in 1991-92, with the Temple destruction as the apex. The teams played again a year later, and Temple won 79-57 at home, a harbinger of the Owls surprising run to the Elite 8 in the NCAA tournament. They also played in 1995-96 and 1996-97, with the home teams winning easily again.

It will be interesting to see what materializes tonight in Tulane's most significant home game since 2000, the last time it had a chance to be anything more than average.

2) The key for Tulane this year, is quite simply, protecting the ball and putting it in the basket. The Wave is a good rebounding team, thanks to team-wide contributions and excellent hands defensively (Tulane forces more turnovers than any other team in the AAC). But the Wave struggled to make shots until last week, when Jonathan Stark went 7 of 11 from 3-point range. He was 8 for 30 on 3s until then. Interestingly, he was hot in his first two conference games last year, too, going 5 for 7 against Tulsa and North Texas. For the rest of the regular season, he was a miserable 12 for 48. He looked so good with his outside shot last week, but history says he won't be able to keep it up.

If he does, this team should contend for the AAC title, an unheard of concept a few months ago. Jay Hook will start shooting better soon. He almost never takes a bad shot, and he is capable of much better than the 6 for 27 stretch he has endured from 3-point range in his last six games. In fact, I'll wager he won't have a stretch that bad for the rest of the season. His stroke is pure.

The lingering question is how hard will it be for Tulane to score against athletic teams like Cincinnati and SMU. I love Dylan Osetkowski's feel for the game and passing ability, but he's not a consistent scorer yet and has a hard time getting the ball over tall defenders. Tre Drye has the same scoring issue and sometimes does not even appear like he wants to try to score, although he played very well against Memphis. Kajon Mack has played well two games in a row but is not a consistent scorer. Payton Henson is a good rebounder who remains aggressive offensively with little to show for it, as his .355 field goal percentage attests. Most of his shots lately have not even come close. Ryan Smith is more sound defensively than Osetkowski but limited everywhere else. Cameron Reynolds, who was struggling offensively anyway, may not be back this year. Keith Pinckney is getting 10 minutes a game, allowing Stark to rest a bit unlike last year, but every time he has the ball he appears close to a catastrophe. He doesn't freeze like some guys have in the past, but he isn't ball secure yet.

In other words, Tulane's offense revolves around Stark, Lou Dabney and Hook. If they are clicking, the Wave can beat anyone in the league. If not, scoring will be a problem against the league's better teams.

I can't wait to see what happens tonight. This is a huge, huge game.





























This post was edited on 1/7 10:54 AM by Guerry Smith

A reporter I know talked to Dedrick Shy of Warren Easton at the state championship game Saturday, and Shy told him Tulane had not been in close contact with him recently and there did not seem to be much interest on either side.

Shy, who played for an ultra-talented team that came up one point shy of being the first New Orleans East Bank public school to win a state championship since Fortier in a different era, was not one of Warren Easton's top four receivers (big-timer Darrell Clark and Tyron Johnson were the primary targets for QB DeShawn Capers-Smith), but he made 30-yard catch to set up a late touchdown as Warren Easton pulled within one point of Neville.

Tulane needs receivers in this class, but Shy, who according to Rivals has offers only from Tulane and Memphis, appears to be looking elsewhere.



This post was edited on 1/7 10:49 PM by Guerry Smith

It's being reported in a number of places that Warren Easton's Dedrick Shy has committed to the Wave. I think this is a terrific "get." He's not rated highly by any of the services but Jimmy Smith has him at #21 in Louisiana's "Nifty Fifty," ahead of some of his better known teammates such as Capers-Smith, Arthur McGinnis, Darrell Clark, and Kendall Franklin.
It would be nice if he and his teammates, Devin Glenn and Jeramie Francis, could convince a couple of those guys to follow them to the Wave.
Although Smith is clearly an LSU homer, I think his contacts with the LSU coaching staff and many of the high school coaches around the state may well make him a better judge than the rating services of Louisiana players.
I also think this commitment means that one or two of our current eight DB commits will be moving to WR or going somewhere other than Tulane. Eight is simply too many when we desperately need wideouts. We'll see.

Roll Wave!!!!

Released today by the American Athletic Conference.

This is all you need to know:

2015
Home: UCF, UConn, Houston, Tulsa
Away: Memphis, Navy, SMU, Temple
Does Not Play: Cincinnati, East Carolina, USF

2016
Home: Memphis, Navy, SMU, Temple
Away: UCF, UConn, Houston, Tulsa
Does Not Play: Cincinnati, East Carolina, USF

2017
Home: Cincinnati, Houston, USF, Tulsa
Away: East Carolina, Memphis, Navy, SMU
Does Not Play: UCF, UConn, Temple

2018
Home: East Carolina, Memphis, Navy, SMU
Away: Cincinnati, Houston, USF, Tulsa
Does Not Play: UCF, UConn, Temple

Some of our fans are very excited about the number of stars being awarded our recruiting class of 2015. I'd like to suggest some words of caution. Inflation in the star-ratings has reached epic proportions, much worse than grade inflation at any college. For example, ESPN has Tulane with 11 commitments (not the 14 most of us are aware of) and have rated only eight of them. All have received three stars. That's great, right? But, of the several hundred Louisiana kids in their data base, they have only rated 90. Of those, including the "Tulane eight," 86 have received at least three stars, over 95% of rated players. ESPN also rates players on a "points scale" with the highest rated recruits receiving a 100, with 70 being the cut off for three stars. Tulane's highest rated player according to ESPN is Darius Black, with a 74, tied for 63rd-66th place in the state.


247 is almost as bad. 105 of their 119 rated Louisiana players have received 3 or more stars (88%). They have us with 12 commits, but have rated only ten of them, giving three stars to three (30%). For 247, their "numbers ratings" give three stars to anyone with 80 points or more. Our highest rated guy, Nigel Anderson, with 85, places in a tie for 53rd-56th place in the state.


Scout gives three stars or better to 61 of the 93 Louisiana recruits they have rated (66%). But, they only have Tulane with five commitments (Brian Webb is given 2-stars but not listed as a commitment). Anderson and Smart have three stars but until Scout's "Post season Top 50" comes out, there is no way to tell where they are ranked in the scheme of things.


Rivals, to its credit (and probably due to Guerry), is on top of the 14 commitments so far publicly proclaimed. They have rated 11 of the 13 Louisiana recruits with Anderson being the only one issued three stars. Of course they only award three stars or more to 51 of 122 rated players (42%), so their criteria, whatever it is, is apparently more stringent than the others. Nonetheless, one out of eleven is still way below "average." On the positive side, however, Anderson was rated the #42 player in the state in Rivals' Post Season ranking of Louisiana recruits.


The number of stars may still change and many "unrated" players will probably magically get two stars or maybe more on signing day to make the services appear "on top" of everything. But, even after signing day, we won't know how good this class is for quite a while. We will only know what certain analysts and recruiting services publish. But, with the inflation rampant in the "star system," it's not a very good indicator of "where we stand." The ratings behind the stars may be no better, but they give a very different view. To date, our class isn't getting much respect from the recruiting services.
This post was edited on 1/7 9:53 AM by WaveON