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To meet you at Wal Mart?

Why doesn't KD bring the Dukes to the JAR to face the Zips? Seems like a no-brainer. It'd be a sellout. Make the game a cancer awareness game, or have a portion of the gate go toward the I Promise School. Until KD retires from Duquesne we should make it a yearly event.

Good wishes to Adam

Nope, doesn't matter. We just have to play the tougher division twice and then it all gets disregarded.

Wasn't sure where to put this, but here's an excellent article on X.

The MAC tinkered with the formatting for several years. IIRC, early in the Dambrot tenure, the top 2 seeds were reserved for the division champions. After realizing it wasn't the 1990s anymore and the West is pretty bad at basketball, they switched to a VERY odd format where the top 2 seeds get BYEs to the semi finals. I believe they determined this gave the top 2 seeds too much of an advantage rest/health wise (Mike Tyson voice: no thit), and that's how we got to where we are at currently.

I miss Bracket Busters

I could envision a Zips vs. Dukes NIT pairing. Too bad the Bracket Buster dissolved. It would have been an obvious match up this year.

yeah, thats why I raised the question because I thought our side was tougher

Yes. There's a debate on the division issue in a separate thread.

Top4 teams in conference get byes to Cleveland. Bottom 8 teams play at campus sites. Top 4 of those host the games. Not necessarily bad thing to play on Monday in first round...keeps the team fresh.

Yep, this has been my one complaint about KD since he left. When he was the coach at Akron he talked for years about how no good teams would ever agree to come to play at Akron. He even name dropped former Akron coach Bob Huggins as an example. Now that he's moved onto Duquesne he's doing the same exact thing by not coming to the JAR. The game wouldn't even need to be played in Akron every year. They could rotate it back and forth between the two cities. I really like the idea that part of the game proceeds would go to the I Promise School. It would seem like a good way of drumming up good publicity for both schools. Also, both schools could certainly use a boost to their OOC schedule.

According to Ole Kenpom the Zips are rated above Daniel Utomi's mighty USC Trojans.

22 point loss.

As long as the MAC tournament is in Cleveland and not Detroit they can do what they want

I was looking at the overall standings for all D-1 leagues and ESPN and I noticed something. There is only one conference in D-1 basketball that still lists its standings by division and it is not the one with the most teams. Care to guess who it is? Its time for the MAC to dump that and just do the overall standings and allow the schedule to be more free form. Since the two seed is no longer guaranteed to one of the division winners in the tournament, it would be lot fairer to not always have to play two games against your division (especially since in most years the East has been significantly better than the West). In crossover games this year the East leads the West 16-8.

Ali had a driving left-handed scoop shot in the 2nd half that shows you his potential with his ball handling, length and athleticism. He was forced to take the shot because the shot clock was expiring, but it was gorgeous. He'll be on heck of a player as he gains confidence and maybe a few extra lbs.

Made me smile. I haven't rooted a bit for Shaka since the NCAA tourney game in Detroit.

Darlington Nagbe hopes to create "something special" with Caleb Porter in Columbus