All Activity

We all knew it was coming but Richie Laryea has been named to the Canada roster for the World Cup!

My question is where does the conversation of the "reward" end? Personally, I think 1) having the most rest throughout the tournament and 2) getting to play the weaker teams the first couple rounds is already a pretty darn good reward. I don't believe a BYE is as rewarding as you believe. Letting the opponent get a game under their belt on a neutral court with new sightlines, etc., is a borderline disadvantage. If you want the regular season to matter more, you don't have a tournament. You have a regular season and a conference championship game - at most. Top 2 teams from the regular season play for a shot at making the dance. The tournament is a money grab - that's it. Trying to apply competitive logic to something solely built to line the pockets of the suits is a fool's errand.

Why wouldn't you reward the top seeds? Again, the MAC is the only conference - to my knowledge- that doesn't reward the #1 seed at all. Right now, the only thing that matters in the MAC regular season is finishing top 8. If a conference wants to make the regular season matter more and reward teams for playing well in the regular season, you should absolutely build your tournament that way. My preferred option would be to take the top 6 teams and give 1/2 a first round bye. It's not as extreme as the double-bye, but it makes earning the 1 or 2 valuable. Thursday 5 PM - #3 vs #6 7:30 PM - #4 vs #5 Friday 5 PM - 4/5 winner vs #1 7:30 PM - 3/6 winner vs #2 Saturday 7:30 - Championship

Note above ,,, meant to say NIT, not NCAA Tournament.

The only thing I'd do would be to add the bottom four seeds and play first rounds again (probably at home arenas, why not? If it's good enough for the CFP...) But seriously, getting a way around those damn Tuesday/Wednesday football games is a bigger problem than this.

Only way this works is if it's an even regular season conference schedule, which it will be going forward. Again, worthless conversation to have because the $$$ from Cleveland is too lucrative for the conference.

This. The basketball is absolutely fine (though moving to a 22-game league schedule would be fine). The football is closer to fine than we probably give it credit for, just for those midweek games that need to go the way of the dodo.

Money grab is right!!! So why f with it??? The 'reward' for winning the regular-season title is playing the No. 8 seed. No matter what you say, No. 1 should be able to defeat No. 8 even on a neutral court. If not, shame on you. If you go back to all 12 teams in the tournament. Top 4 get byes. And first round games on campus sites ... I think that (A) rewards the top 4 seeds with a bye, (B) gives all team a final chance at making the tournament ... and (C) still maintains the 3-games in 3-days in Cleveland. To me, that's the most fair scenario of all. If you want to add re-seeding after the first round, I'd be open to it. But beyond that what the MAC could actually do to 'reward' the No. 1 seed, is guarantee the MAC season champ (NOT THE HIGHEST REMAINING SEED) gets the league's auto bid to the NCAA Tournament ahead of any other team, plus the MAC pays to host an opening round NIT game. ADs really need to stop smelling themselves and screwing with a proven winning formula. EDIT: I meant to say 'auto bid to the NIT Tournament' ... it also has a very modest payout, which teams should be able to keep and not share. Combined with No. 1 seed, vs. No. 8 seed, in MAC Tournament and re-seeding after the first round, a trophy, a bag of chips .... and STILL getting rewarded with a modest NIT$$$ paycheck should be enough consolation for winning the regular season, but not the MAC Tournament. IMO. Per AI, in the NIT: Schools are given about \(\$4,000\) per game played, alongside having all of their travel, lodging, and tournament expenses covered. Additionally, host teams retain all gate receipts, parking, and concession revenues for their home games.

Where does the "reward the top 2 seeds" conversation stop? Why not simply let the regular season determine what the Championship Game is? Why have a tournament at all? The tournament is a money grab across the NCAA meaning the suits will always have the tournament. As long as we're having the tournament, the current format is the most fun. 4 games on Thursday starting at 11am is an absolute blast for basketball fans. Quit ruining what's fun in this country to extract every penny out of everything.

I'm fine with the MACT the way it is now. It's one of the best mid-major tournaments in all of college basketball. I do think a double bye takes away much of the intrigue by making the top 2 seeds over powered. I would entertain the idea of re-seeding teams each round and would at least listen to the argument of a 6 team tournament with top 2 seeds getting a first round bye.

And to the surprise of no one, as soon as a couple teams weren't as competitive as they magically thought they would be sans Louisville, the EBC will be itself dead in a couple years.

We'll have at least one Zip heading to Eugene for the national championships. Still a couple more opportunities for another to qualify but it's tough competition.

Looks like it may have been sold again.

I do not see it.

I actually think the format should change. I believe we are one of the few conferences that doesn't reward its 1 and 2 seeds at all. Regular season performance should earn you an advantage.

I wouldn’t mind if we did the standard 1-8 games but the 1 seed gets to play on Wednesday or something like that to get a day off. Only issue would be conflicting with the womens day

We act like this is the masters. It'll be okay

Unfortunately it’s always whoever they were at school most recently.

Suits are very, VERY good at screwing things up once they climb the ladder high enough. Messing with the current MAC Tournament format would be asinine, especially if it's in response to Akron's dominance/Miami OH's choke job. The Sun Belt has the craziest format in the nation that gives each set of higher seeds an additional bye. The tournament started on Tuesday, March 3rd. The top 2 seeds - Troy (1) and Marshall (2) - didn't play until Sunday, March 8th. The semifinals were 1 seed Troy vs. 8 seed Southern Miss and 2 seed Marshall vs. 10 seed Georgia Southern; this, after the quarterfinals matchups saw 2 blowouts by the lower seeds. Georgia Southern had played 4 games prior to their semifinal matchup and knocked off Marshall to reach the tournament final. Putting top teams on ice for longer periods of time is riskier than 3 games in 3 days. If the double-bye is that intriguing for ADs, why don't they propose a 2-round conference tournament starting Friday night? Why have 8 teams make it to Cleveland instead of 4? Don't. Touch. The. Format.

Double bye is good imo

Personally, I like 3 games in three days & agree they shouldn't fix what's not broken. But wouldn't proponents of the move argue it gives more weight to the regular season (which really is a problem basketball - at all levels - struggles with) by rewarding the top two seeds?

That was pretty shocking. I guess the schools in the NBC (Northeastern Buckeye Conference) weren't allowed to simply vote Louisville out, so every other member school simultaneously exited the conference and then formed a brand new conference sans Louisville; The Eastern Buckeye Conference. 😂😭

Absolutely. In fact in 2010 they were amazing & made it to the state semifinals. I believe they had 3 seniors go D-1 off that team.

I think you are correct ... but at the same time shows the ADs ignorance. If they are so bummed by Akron's success the last thing they should be doing is making it easier for Akron to dominate, which is what a rule change like this does. GREAT FOR AKRON ... but over time it will water down the MAC. The other thing, that makes no sense, why set. the rules up to favor a program that has never won a NCAA Tournament appearance, and only rarely came close. AKRON IS THE DOMINANT MAC BASKETBALL POWER ... that is proven. As of now, Miami is a 2-year wonder and a 1-year unicorn. ADs seem to want to favor Miami, but in the long run are really favoring the Zips. Actually, I should probably just quietly stand by. But my college basketball fandom extends beyond one or two teams to the MAC overall and the sport in general. And a rule like this is favortism, not a balanced slate.

A big reason why they went away from the double bye was because schools thought it was too over powered and used it as an excuse for why Akron constantly made the finals under Dambrot. Now that both Toledo and Miami got embarrassed by an early upset a few years apart and Akron is dominating even more so than before they want to make changes once again. It seems the other ADs are just tired of Akron winning.