Classic UAB vs. Memphis matchup possibly lost in the shuffle

Posted on Feb 13, 2012 in News

On Tuesday, I couldn’t help but think back to my first campus tour of UAB. As we passed Bartow Arena, my tour guide stopped in front of the building to emphasize its importance and to prepare us for the memories we were going to make in the coming year. She was right about one thing: one of my favorite UAB student body traditions has become the camp-out to buy tickets for the UAB vs. Memphis men’s basketball game. Memphis has been our biggest rival since 1984, but on Tuesday we all learned that’s about to change.

This graphic show the history of Conference USA membership, with UAB and Tulane being the only two original member that will remain in 2013. Graphic by Daniel Twieg

Earlier this week, Memphis announced their decision to leave Conference USA and join the Big East along with UFC, Houston, and SMU. Conference USA has suffered from conference realignment in previous years, with losing Marquette, Louisville, Cincinnati, DePaul, University of South Florida, Army, Charlotte, TCU, and St. Louis all leaving when the previous conference alignment took place in 2005.

C-USA went from being a national basketball powerhouse where four to five teams would get in every year and now less than 10 years later we could possibly be a single bid conference, with that being the tournament winner.

All four schools lost this time, were big media markets for C-USA. UAB and Memphis were two of the biggest rivals in the conference, and it’s rare for there to ever be an empty seat in the arena on UAB vs. Memphis game night.

The Battle of the Bones trophy currently resides in Birmingham. Photo: texasqrub.com

So what exactly does this mean for UAB? It means several things. UAB Athletic Director Brian Mackin believes it means the absolute best for UAB. There has been a lot of talk about Conference USA merging to join the Mountain West and possibly calling themselves Mount USA. If the two conferences were to merge, the new conference would be made up of sixteen teams.

When asked about the logistics of this realignment, Mackin said, “They have 8 teams and we will have 8 teams. We will be split between regions. East will be Conference USA and the West side will be the Mountain West. Well play our own schools. There might be a crossover in football, a game for television purposes, but everything else from an all sports stand point will be playing our same schools.”

Many students have wondered who our new rival will be, but others have said that Memphis will still be our biggest rival whether they’re in our conference or not. Gang Green’s current president, Dustin Welborn, believes Memphis has and always will be our largest and most important rival. “I can honestly say there is not a game that I want UAB to win more than the Memphis game,” said Welborn.

Louisville and Cincinatti both were big rival to UAB and now, neither rivalry exists. The good news is that UAB is determined not to lose this rivalry, which means the tradition of the camp-out to assure your ticket to the big game!

Mackin confidently reassured, “I will be contacting the athletic director at Memphis to set up a home basketball game or football game with them, so I plan to not lose that series.”

Many students believe that this realignment actually makes beating Memphis even more important… and that it might be exactly what we need to help support the Free UAB movement.

“I think it more than certainly shows we need an on-campus football stadium,” said Welborn. “That essentially is the missing puzzle piece for UAB to continue building its athletic programs. You might even say that if we already had our own stadium we could possibly be the ones moving to a power conference like the Big East.”

For UAB, this means we will be aligned with other schools that will better mirror us on both an academic and athletic standpoint. UAB will still be playing another rival, Southern Miss. In addition to Southern Miss, UAB is looking at playing schools like New Mexico and Navy.

Mackin believes the future is bright for UAB athletics. He added, “I really want this to come across to the students, to our fan base, and to this community that we are enhancing our chances to increase our revenue and increase our exposure by the formation of this conference, and it should be a positive move on our part and it should only benefit UAB.”

Regardless whether the news is positive, not much can be done at this point to keep the conference as powerful and nationally recognized. However, the Battle of the Bones needs to be a focal point of UAB, in order to assure the Blazers do not lose what little tradition they already have.

Additional reporting by Tripp Larsen

Taylor Suttle
Contributor
tsuttle@uab.edu

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