All that’s on the line for most of the teams in the Conference USA Tournament, is everything.

Only three of the league’s teams are among the top 50 in the latest NCAA RPI rankings, which are used to determine who is selected for the NCAA Tournament. For the other five teams heading to Trustmark Park this week, that means their last, best chance to go to the big dance is by winning the smaller dance and the automatic bid that goes with it.

“I think we need to win at least two, maybe three in the tournament, and if we do that we solidify ourselves,” said Tulane coach Rick Jones, whose team went 37-18 and opens the C-USA Tournament Wednesday night against East Carolina. “We finished third in one of the top five conferences in the country and we have 37 wins. It’s not like we’re having a bad year.”

Southern Miss (30-23) is among the teams in the back of the C-USA pack, but the news isn’t all bad. The Golden Eagles jumped 20 spots in the RPI rankings, to 89th, after sweeping East Carolina two weeks ago and are likely to move up a little more after winning two of three from UAB to finish the regular season.

The late surge gave them the No. 4 seed for the C-USA Tournament, and set them up with a favorable path to make a run to the title game.

USM plays the first game of the tournament Wednesday morning against Memphis, then faces Houston on Thursday and top-seeded Rice on Saturday night. Southern Miss went 5-1 against Memphis and Houston this season, and dropped two out of three to Rice.

Memphis is also on a roll. It won 12 of 15 games after getting swept by Southern Miss April 20-22, and has an eight-game winning streak against C-USA opponents. Third baseman Jacob Wilson hit .381 and had eight RBIs in four games last week, and was selected C-USA Hitter of the Week on Sunday.

“We stayed really solid in our routine. It wasn’t going well for us early in the year. We had a couple series losses to people that I’d like to have back now. We didn’t alter what we do,” Memphis coach Darren Schoenrock. “The interesting thing is we we were so pitching dominant early in the year, and we hadn’t had great pitching until (Saturday). It’s a credit to our offense.”

Schoenrock said he was looking forward to facing Southern Miss again.

“Our guys will be hungry for that. Southern Miss always draws very well there. It’ll be an exciting crowd, an exciting game,” Schoenrock said. “I think the way our guys are playing now, the confidence they’re playing with, I don’t think they care who they’re playing.

Rice (39-15), as usual, is the alpha dog in the tournament. It took two of three on the road from Central Florida to claim its 17th consecutive regular-season conference championship. That streak has endured through three different leagues.

Central Florida (41-14) is the No. 2 seed and will face Tulane, East Carolina and UAB. The C-USA Tournament uses a pod system that guarantees each team three games. The teams with the best record in each pod will then play in the championship game Sunday afternoon.

Unlike their conference brethren, the NCAA Tournament status of Rice and UCF is not in doubt. Both teams, however, are playing for the right to host an NCAA regional. Rice, which is 19th in RPI and in the Top 10 in all of the major polls, is also vying for one of the eight national seeds that would give it the right to host a super regional series.

“We’re certainly in the discussion,” to host a regional, UCF coach Terry Rooney said. “From my standpoint, and my kids’ standpoint, we’re focused on winning one game at a time when we get to Mississippi. Anything can happen, but I feel absolutely confident that going into the conference tournament we’ve earned an at-large bid, at minimum, to the NCAA Tournament. There’s no question in my mind that we’re one of those teams.”