kreed5120

In my wish world Akron steam rolls them by 20

I know this was a joke, but considering he's only in year 3 of a 5 year deal I imagine his job is secure. I can't imagine Akron athletics would be eager to pay a buyout for a sport that it frankly doesn't invest heavily in to start with.

I mean it wouldn't really mean anything if a big schools came calling. Nate Oats signed a new deal with UB then bolted for Alabama like a month later.

Exactly, I don't understand the hate. If we were sending men's/women's basketball, baseball, volleyball, etc. I would understand it more, but we're not. They're paying us a ton of money and are covering the travel costs for each MAC school to fly out there once every 3 years. What's the downside?

If Miami makes the tournament as last 4 in that would be a heck of a consolation prize for them. Getting to play a winnable tournament game just ~1 hour away from campus in what would have a home game atmosphere.

A few teams have tried enforcing contracts. I know Mensah ended up settling with Duke that way he could transfer to Miami. I'm not sure what kind of compensation Duke ended up receiving. I'm also not sure if we've seen one of these contract disputes make it all the way through the legal system to see what the higher courts decide. There should be some sort of uniformity in these contracts and some governing body to enforce them. Having to fight legal battles everytime a player decides to leave school A to go to school B because school A pays him $50k while school B promises him $100k frankly clogs up the court system and costs taxpayers unnecessary money. We're both paying for the schools additional legal team needed to fight these cases and paying for the judges who have to hear them. The only real winners are lawyers and their billable hours.

Who would pay $100 for an Akron t-shirt? If you want to advertise the value at least mention what something comparable in the team shop or book store would sell for.

Why would we play 10 conference home games and 8 conference road games as you propose in your scenario? OU wasn't even a good team last year. They finished #195 in Kenpom. You can't just simply state well if you eliminate all the games we lost we would be undefeated. Well no crap. The game was played and we lost. We also didn't have to play @ Miami, who was clearly the MAC's 2nd best team last season, but nobody talks about that. The fact is over a long season you have slip ups. We had many last year. Milwaukee, Princeton, and Ohio were all teams that we had no business losing to, but still did. That great UB team a few years back should have beaten NIU by 20+, but lost. If Miami goes 18-0 in conference play this might be the only undefeated (in conference play) MAC team any of see in our lifetimes. If the MAC expands to 22 games that feat becomes even more challenging. No team will be able to easily replicate their run.

Yes, I'm still not penciling Miami winning out this regular season, but the pathway looks more manageable now. The last team to go undefeated in MAC conference play was Miami in 1958. Back then the conference season was only 12 games. People act like Miami has created this path that is easy to replicate. The fact is it's not easy to go undefeated in MAC play if it takes 70 years to happen. We've experienced some fantastic MAC teams, several even objectively better than this Miami team, and none of them were able to accomplish the feat. If going 18-0 in MAC play was easy we would have already achieved it under Dambrot or Groce.

Each unit is about a total of $2 million and is spread over 6 years. That means the conference gets about 333K each year. If that gets divided evenly it comes out to ~28k per team each year for 6 years. The Toledo Blade did an article last spring/summer and people around the MAC were estimating Akron has a $1 million roster. UMass collective claims I believe something closer to $1.5 million. A program like WMU would probably have to spend an additional $200k-$400k on coaches/staff and an additional $300k-$400k in NIL to just become a competitive mid-major. The MAC earning an occasional at-large bid isn't going to cover those costs.

I agree with a lot that is being said here. I just think the problems run much deeper than coaches complaining about these games. There are only a handful of teams actually trying to compete to make the big dance. Of these really only Akron, Miami, and UMass have the budgets to make real noise. Programs like WMU, CMU, and NIU don't seem to be remotely trying. In fact, if they could spend less to have more money for football, or in WMU case hockey, they would. You can probably throw EMU in there as well, but they look slightly more competent than the others as Heath managed to find 1-2 gems that cost little to no NIL.

Those events do exist. Akron played Murray State in Vegas. Ohio played St. Bonaventure in Cleveland. They're just part of double or triple header events. Michigan and Duke are large national brands with deep pocketed alumni. If they played a game in Butte, Montana 10k people would still show. If Akron played Northern Iowa at the Kia Center in Orlando, FL (and that was the headline event) how many people do you think would honestly show? Now remember renting out an NBA arena for a day probably costs $100k, perhaps more, and you receive none of the parking or concession revenue. Both teams would eat heavy financial losses.

They actually have fairly good fan support, especially when you consider they have been a below average to average MAC team for the past 2 decades. Currently 5th in the MAC in attendance. Averaging about 750 more fans per game then even we are. Speaking of which I didn't really our season average has sank so low. We're only slightly above 2k/game. It wasn't long ago that we were pushing 3k per game.

I'd be surprised if the SunBelt expands beyond 14 teams. So much league revenue, like NCAA tournament credits, is fixed so unless adding them leads to at-large bids (not happening), you're just splitting the same size pie more ways. The SunBelt could have interest in Miami/OU, but I'm inclined to think that it would be a contingency to back fill in the event they get raided by PAC-12, MWC, or AAC.

What's crazy is Toledo hasn't made the Big Dance since 1980 and their rival can't even use that against the because they haven't gone dancing since 1968. That's 100+ years combined for the two. Not sure what's in the water in NW Ohio.

I would imagine Tavari's size played a part in it. Big programs aren't willing to pay top dollar for a guard who is 3-4 inches undersized. If he was offered something similar to Nate I have to imagine he'd be gone as well. You even see it in the NBA. Trae Young was one of the hottest young names in the NBA a handful of years ago. He gets traded for a salary dump. Garland, in the prime of his career, was just traded for someone who has maybe 2-3 years left in the tank. Edit: Akron may or may not have offered him the largest sum. Even if someone offered him more than what Akron did the delta between the two probably wasn't a life changing difference amount to be worth his while.

Exactly, luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Their players have made big plays in big moments. Ours stepped over the line while trying to inbound a pass.

Kansas State won their first game without Tang. Nate put up a stat line of 33/9/5.

Of course they have been lucky to be 24-0. That still doesn't mean it isn't an impressive accomplishments. We were favored in 4 out of our 5 losses. If we won the games we were supposed to we would be at 1 loss, but we didn't. It's not easy to do.

Yale has losses to Harvard and Princeton and you think Miami can't beat them? Murray St is #99. Both games were played on neutral court. Miami would be favored in both games. So many of yoi guys sound like jealous exes. Let Miami have their 5 minutes of fame.

Troy IMO isn't really any better than Marshall who Miami beat comfortably. Miami also didn't shoot well when they played us. We would have been run out of the gym had they shot their season averages.

I assumed the fans most likely to be selected were the ones who already hold influence through being large donors or long-term connections.

I feel teams have been more physical against us, which has in part thrown off our rhythm. Also, I feel teams have done a better job of limiting open court turnovers creating fewer fast breaks and making us play a more half court offense. The video game numbers we were putting up earlier in the were never going to be sustainable.

I don't think there is separate pots. I think the conference just pays out a lump sum to each school. I think last year it was around $2.5 million for Akron.

You're talking about the state capital for the 5th largest economy in the world. Between politicians, lobbyists, and others in area trying to buy influence there is probably retarded amounts of money floating around the area. Not to mention outside the Sacramento Kings there is very little local sports competition.