ORLADNO, Fla. – There is way to underplay the importance of today’s Conference USA final.

SMU has a chance to do something that hasn’t occurred in nearly a decade – win a conference title and get an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Wow.

And there’s no margin for error, either.

While SMU has a record number of wins for a season, that will not be enough to get them an at-large bid from the selection committee. They must beat UTEP.

Head coach Rhonda Rompola is setting the right tone in the locker room. After the semi-final win over Marshall she said that just getting to the C-USA final isn’t good enough. There are no moral victories for getting that far into the tournament, she said, which is exactly what the players need to hear.

Winning won’t be easy.

The Mustangs will have to vanquish another conference team that beat them both times during the regular season. They did it against Tulsa on Friday – but they are an admittedly inferior team that SMU should have beat during the season.

UTEP is ranked in the national top 25 and has only lost two games all year. A much tougher opponent than Tulsa, but one that SMU has played competitively in both games.

A win is not out of the question. In fact, it is very possible.

But SMU must avoid the slow starts that it had against Tulsa and Marshall. Finishing strong shouldn’t be a problem, but SMU cannot dig itself a 15-point hole and expect to win.

The seniors want this. The underclassmen want it for the seniors. The coaching staff is in a place where they have this team achieve the goals it set at the start of the season.

A conference championship. An NCAA bid.

High stakes, indeed.