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Sports

Cougars mired near basement

by ARIE GRAHAM
The Daily Cougar

The No. 1 spot

The Tulane Green Wave and Alabama-Birmingham Blazers are tied for first place in Conference USA. 

The Green Wave pulled through with a 66-48 victory over the Blazers on Saturday to extend its winning streak to nine games, tied for the second-longest winning streak in program history. 

The Green Wave has two more games on the road against Marshall, which is on a three-game losing streak, and East Carolina, which is on a three-game winning streak, before returning home next week to finish conference regular season play. The Green Wave is crashing through C-USA, and no team has been able to stop it lately.

This performance is coming from a team picked to finish sixth in conference in a preseason poll.

Though Tulane has pretty much secured the No. 1 spot in C-USA, the second, third, fourth and fifth places are up for grabs between several teams, including Texas-El Paso (8-4 in C-USA), Rice (8-4 in C-USA), Marshall (7-5 in C-USA), East Carolina (7-5 in C-USA), Southern Methodist (6-6 in C-USA) and Southern Miss (6-6 in C-USA).

In need of a boost

UH (7-15, 4-8 in C-USA) needs something to get it going in the last two weeks of conference play. 

The Cougars sit in ninth place and need to win out and get some help from teams ahead of them if they want to finish in the top half of C-USA. 

Two of the Cougars' last four games will be on the road. The team has yet to win an away game in C-USA play, but that doesn't mean it can't steal these two.

The Cougars have the talent but have struggled to play consistently. If they want to finish the regular season strong, they must avoid the turnovers that have plagued them in their losses.

Smart play

Southern Miss is doing away with the "dumb jock" stereotype. Two of their players, senior guard Kristin Chaney and sophomore forward Kendra Reed, were named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VI first team. 

Chaney and Reed are not players who sit on the bench hoping for playing time -- Chaney has started in all 26 games this year, plays more minutes than any other player on the team and maintains a 3.75 grade-point average. Reed is also a starter and has a 3.69 GPA. Both players have received the C-USA Academic Medal, as well as other academic honors.

These women, among others, have proven student athletes can excel in the classroom and on the court.

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