Aaaand... We're Back.

After a weekend in which Memphis evened their football record at 5-5, Tennessee lost to 28-point underdog Wyoming to tie their worst season loss number in history (7; as a Memphis fan, I'm slightly peeved that 7 games is the most they've ever lost in one season), and roughly 1.2 million ladies began having second-thoughts about conceiving an Obama-baby a few nights ago, the Tomb of Doom is back.

Collegehoops.net ranks the Tigers at #8 to start the season. I was with these guys until they suggested the Pierre Henderson-Niles would give the team another option on the perimeter. Maybe I misread that... or maybe the team has been hiding Niles' progress and he's gone from Batman to The Machinist.
Gross.

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Rush the Court has the Tigers at #8, as well. They also give a sweet run down of the CUSA, some nice stats and big games to watch. Thanks to Randy McClure for the heads up on this one.

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Congrats to Dozier for being named to the 2008-09 John R. Wooden Award preseason top-50 list. He's following former Tigers CDR, DWash, Carney and Sean Banks in this preseason honor. Those are big steps to follow. We know Dozier can make it happen!

And if not, he can follow in another teammates footsteps and make it rain at Plush.

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Speaking of Dozier, I hope he can keep his mind on his game instead of his legacy. He has a lot looming in front of him.

Dozier is 97 points away from joining Memphis' 1,000-point club. On top of that, if Dozier can secure 66 more rebounds, he'll join the ranks of Keith Lee, Forest Arnold, Kelly Wise, Ronnie Robinson, David Vaughn and Don Holcomb as the only Tiger players to reach 1,000 points and 750 rebounds.

I'm guessing 8 games for Dozier to reach this status. The rebounds will be what lags. There are some powder puff games early on, so he should have a good shot sooner than later.

Dozier is also joined by Anderson in a quest to become the winningest NCAA men's basketball players of all time. Since Dozier and Anderson have joined the Tigers, the team has won 104 games. The current record is 133, held by Shane Battier and the Dukies starting back in 2000. When the Tigers win their 30th game this year, Anderson and Dozier will have sole possession of that place in history. The Tigers will need their veteran leadership this year. Go Tigers!

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SI.com is pitting the winner of the Memphis/USC semifinal in Puerto Rico against Xavier in the final. Why is Memphis even playing USC in the semis, rather than setting them up for the final? Most likely, it's to save USC the embarrassment of being crushed by Memphis in a tournament final on national television... You know, since everyone loves USC...

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Don't be fooled by his nickname. Foxsports writer "Hoops" Weiss wrote a decent article about Memphis being the next UNLV (a good thing) and reflected with Coach Cal vaguely about The Game of Which We Will Not Speak. Other than a weird Wesley Person reference, the article is decent.