kreed5120

I feel covid was equally to blame. You had people get out of the routine of going to games and they never returned once things returned to normal.

52 I don't think is old enough to be a concern. Coaches usually coach until early to mid 60s before they voluntarily retire. That would give whatever program that would be interested 10 years with him. That's much longer than the average coach stays at any program. If we was 57-58 I can see his age being a deterrent.

Some people feel the need more to be right than they care for their team to suceed. I was probably the biggest Bowden critic on this board(or at least one of them) because I felt settling for 5-7 season with a random 6-7 win season here or there wasn't what Akron should be striving for. That never stopped me from being a fan and still enjoying some of the highs, like beating Northwestern.

That's why I cheer for the MAC, excluding Kent, to do well OOC. Akron plays 18 MAC games and only 1-2 of those games the committee will look at and think that's a good win. Meanwhile, you play 16 Q3 or Q4 games and any of those that you lose will look like a black eye on your resume. Statistically if you play enough cupcake games, you will lose 1-2 of them. As was the case against Miami. Edit: Also, I'm an Akron fan, but am also a fan of college basketball as a whole. It's a lot more fun to watch Akron basketball games when the games actually matter. Based off attendance figures at games when a good Toledo or UB comes to town, it seems Joe Akron would agree.

What's the story there?

Had we beaten Utah State we would have played SFA instead of Drake. I think we would have had to beat Utah State, SFA (mainly because losing to them negates the Utah State win), and St. Bonnie to even enter the discussion. JMU is currently #63 in net and has a 20-3 record and nobody is discussing them as an at-large candidate. They would probably be a 4 or 5 seed in the NIT if the season ended today (assuming they didn't win their conference tournament).

I wouldn't put much weight into those rankings. Last weekend Ohio had 9k in attendance for their game against Miami. No way they should be behind CMU.

I didn't really think of that possibility, but I wouldn't be against it.

It's a Bobcat Attack inside joke.

I still think the Buffalo job is a pretty good one. They just whiffed badly when replacing Oats. The jury is still out on the new guy. They have shown a commitment to actually invest in basketball, which alone makes them a top 4 or 5 job in the MAC. The main reason the MAC has gotten so bad is the other 7-8 programs have completely given up on trying to run a competitive program. Akron this year is having a good year. Toledo lost a lot of talent to graduation, but still managed to put out an okay team in a rebuild year. Kent is having a down year. Ohio made what seemed like a good hire at the time, but hasn't panned out. Those are the programs that actually try to win in MAC basketball.

I get the connection to the University, but no thanks. He has no head coaching experience. He's an assistant coach on the 11th place team in his conference. What's attractive about the hire? That's not to say he can't become a good coach, but nothing he's done inspires confidence that he could keep the ball rolling. I would much rather poach an up and coming coach from an OVC, Horizon, or other smaller fish conference. The other option would be if a Groce type candidate is available. Someone who had prior success at the mid-major level, but couldn't get it done at a P6 school.

Mid-rangers are statistically the worst shots one can take. If one shoots 35% from 3, which isn't even good, you would have to shoot 52.5% from mid-range to be as efficient.

It seems Groce moved all the chips to the middle of the table trying for 1 last magical ride while you have a talent like Freeman on the roster. If Akron makes noise in March, Groce could gain attention. If not, next year will be a rebuilding year regardless. Although, with how bad the MAC is a rebuilding year still might be able to get you a 3rd or 4th place finish in the MAC. Regardless, I'm going to enjoy this run while it lasts. It will probably be a while before we see a talent like Freeman on Akron's roster again.

They beat Portage County Community College in double OT. It might have been the biggest choke job in PCCC history.

That's not accurate. Perhaps he's referring to non-conference SOS. That currently sits at #67 in the nation. I'm not going to look through 20 years of data, but that could be accurate. Right now our overall SOS is #232 because MAC play has torpedoed it. I won't go through 20+ years of data, but last year our overall SOS was #206. In 2019 (the last year the MAC was decent), we finished at #110 in SOS. You play more conference games than you do non-conference so conference play more heavily weighs into SOS. Especially since several of those OOC games don't even factor in since they aren't against D1 teams.

The same way we lost to Miami. The better team doesn't always win. Some nights you bring your C or D game and your opponent brings their A game and that's enough for them to overcome the disparity in talent. We live in a world where a 16 seed has beaten a 1 seed. Nothing should be all that surprising.

Took them 8+ minutes before they even made their first fg lol

OSU football definitely dominates. When it comes to college basketball I mostly see apathy in Northeast Ohio until March rolls around. The people around here that are really into college basketball and actually watch the regular season seem to be UNC, Kentucky, or a program like that. Buckeyes basketball don't hold that same grip. Perhaps because they have never been as successful as their football counterpart or because basketball as a whole just gets overshadowed by football In these parts. When the Cavs aren't winning, the Q is maybe 50-60% full.

Yes, I was looking at their team stats yesterday. Despite their record, on a ppg basis they have been outscored 2-3 ppg. That kind of tells you that they win close games, but have been blown out a few times. It's not like their OOC schedule was brutal either.

They're honestly just not a good basketball team. They're all smoke and mirrors. They needed 2OT to beat both Bowling Green and NIU. That's not to say we can't lose, but this is a game we should win 9 times out of 10.

I'm not sure Akron can win if CMU scores 160 lol

I'll spread the wealth

I'm still not buying CMU. Akron is clearly the class of the MAC this season. Toledo is good enough to challenge. After that I feel it's a huge drop off to everyone else. Someone has to be in 3rd place.

I would have liked to see the Zips slow the game down offensively when Freeman was on the bench. Perhaps work on getting Ali into the low post or Hunter matched up with a smaller defender. Those missed jump shots, which lead to long rebounds, enabled Toledo to push the ball before Akron could get set defensively. Toledo struggled most of the night when they were forced to run a half court offense.

I bid $2 just to ruin your bid