kreed5120

Yes, I was referring to getting to the 34.4% NCAA median. 34.4% - 22.5% = to a tick under 11%.

Yes, I have to agree with Cheese doing an excellent job of running the point as of late. Earlier in the year I was a naysayer stating I felt he was only a 2 guard. I was proven wrong (not the 1st time). Since then he's gotten more aggressive attacking the basket which has led to him creating offense for both himself and for teammates.

Yeah, in general Buffalo is the only great in the MAC this year, but there are still a lot of decent other ones. 11 of the 12 MAC teams are in the top 50% of D1 basketball based off of the NET rankings. Buffalo will beat any team in the MAC when they bring their A game, but that's tough to do for 18 straight games. What we saw last night is Buffalo played their C game and NIU A game was good enough to beat it.

I was referring to winning the MAC tournament. I'm not sure if you're aware, but Akron is a combined 40/170 (23.5%) from behind the arc during MAC play. The NCAA median 3P% is 34.4%. I'd classify an 11% jump in 3P% major progress. In fact, if we shot 34.4% on our 170 attempts, it would have translated into an additional 18.5 makes. That's an additional 9 points per game.

Saul is in the last year of his contract so unless an unexpected turnaround these next 2 months I'd say he's definitely gone. Hawkins has 1 year left on his deal after this season. Whether he stays or goes depends on if WMU wants to be cheap or not.

Even if we were an average shooting 3-point team, I'd think we'd be extremely dangerous in March the way we play defense. It's easy to complain about us taking "too many 3's", but it's hard to fault a guy like Utomi who took a 3 when the nearest defender was 10 feet away.There was another we missed in the corner when LCJ beat the press and passed it off to I believe it was Cheese or Banks standing in the corner with nobody within 15 feet. Those are the shots we need to make. Teams are going to pack the paint and make us shoot over them in Cleveland. Frankly, I don't see how we can win unless we see some major progress in the shooting department.

They've looked good, but still would have to beat Buffalo twice...

This is an important game. With a win we'd slide into some sort of tie for at least 4th place and a pretty good chance at 3rd considering the Flushes play Buffalo who will be extra motivated coming off a loss. The MAC is a cluster $%@* this year. Who would have guessed through 6 games Bowling Green would be in sole possession of 1st place?

For the ones who said Buffalo would run the table earlier in this thread, those comments didn't age well

We really have no choice but to ride Utomi even when he's cold. We're thin at PF.

Buffalo has the ball down 3 with 18.4 seconds left.

We did the same #%$+ at Mount Pleasant.

Why we subbing out Cheese? He's been our offense the past 5 minutes.

I hope nobody betted the over on the 147 over/under

Yes, I'd have to say Big Dog is the best passing big I've seen at Akron. Riak I don't think will be lighting it up for 15 a game, but I do feel he leaves points on the court. Against EMU at home, Akron was up 50-49 with 25-30 seconds left and Riak got a pass about 9 feet away from the basket with nobody between him and the basket. He could have easily took it to the hoop and dunked it to put Akron up 3, but instead he passed the ball out. He ended up getting the ball back later that possession and was forced to put up a 15 footer near the end of the shot clock. I by no means think he's a good offensive player, but I do think he needs to be more assertive when presented an opportunity for a high percentage shot.

Akron comes in favored by 6.5. I'm cautiously optimistic that we will win, but that seems like a lot the way our offense has been playing.

I agree, single game tickets are $15 and I paid $60 for my season tickets. It only requires attending 4 games to hit a break even point and that doesn't even factor in the free parking for my season tickets.

Out of curiosity I gave it a look and it seems to be the online processing fees running up the cost. In the future if you want to go to the game it might just be best to call and talk to a representative then pick up tickets at will call. I believe you should be able to avoid the fees that way.

We still have the best apparel deal of any MAC basketball program and we have one of the largest basketball budgets of any MAC program. As long as the program retains its funding, it will remain an attractive job relative to other MAC schools.

On a some what related note to my last post. We've asked Utomi to be our de facto stretch 4. He's getting outsized by 3-4 inches and I can only guess how many pounds per game. I think he's done a good job defensively for his size to not be exploited, but I wonder if it has had an impact on his offensive game. One has to think he's spending quite a bit of energy to make up for his size.

A couple things about rebounding. First off, It doesn't help when our best rebounder is only 6'4. Secondly, it doesn't help we're forced to play 4 guards and only 1 big because frankly we have no other choice. Hell tonight there was a stretch we played 5 guards and no bigs. We've gotten very little production from our bigs.

Yes, the MAC should be significantly weaker next season. If we're still battling to just get a home 1st round game, I'll have my pitchfork sharpened and ready to go.

It's getter tougher and tougher to put forth the effort to make it out to the games.

Understatement of the year

Effort was there, but frankly we suck on the offensive end. We desperately need to recruit shooters.