March 13-16. All games at Tulsa, Okla.

All-kenpom: Joe Jackson, Memphis (kPOY); Dwayne Davis, Southern Miss; Josh Davis, Tulane; Isaiah Sykes, UCF; Maurice Kemp, East Carolina.

Memphis rolled to a 16-0 record in C-USA play and Rice struggled to a 1-15 mark, validating the preseason poll.  What happened in between didn’t go accoring to plan, however. Southern Miss surprised some people by going 12-4 and is the most likely team to win the C-USA auto bid should Memphis not. And that is what folks across the college hoops world will be monitoring as results from the BOK Center appear on their virtual scoreboard of choice.  With Memphis projected safely in the field of 68 and yet having a slightly worse than 50/50 of winning the C-USA tournament, there’s a high possibility that someone from the conference becomes a bid thief.

Tulsa gets half of a home-court share in this analysis.

Numbers listed are the probabilities of a team advancing to each round. Unfamiliar with log5? Here’s more than you want to know.

                Qtrs Semis Final Champ
 1 Memphis       100  85.5  71.2  48.1
 2 Southern Miss 100  80.4  58.1  30.0
 3 UTEP          100  69.2  26.4   9.3
 5 Tulsa         100  50.1  11.0   3.5
 4 East Carolina 100  49.9  10.9   3.4
 8 Tulane       68.5  11.8   6.0   1.9
 6 Houston      86.6  29.7   7.5   1.8
 7 UAB          55.6  11.8   5.0   1.3
10 SMU          44.4   7.8   2.9   0.6
 9 Marshall     31.5   2.7   0.9   0.2
11 Rice         13.4   1.0   0.05  0.003