MDZip

Back in ESPN Bracketology. Now a 13 seed against Maryland in Greensboro, NC. Would love the location and matchup, I've seen a lot of Maryland and think the Zips would match up favorably against them. We really need to win the MAC to keep the league from getting embarrassed. Zips are the only team that wouldn't be a 15 seed.

Good for Keith, actually what he is doing at Duquesne is pretty darn impressive, even more so after reading that article.

Yes they are certainly fired up about this game. All of two responses to the topic which was started at 6:30 this morning for a game with their biggest rival. smh

ESPN on what you need to win a conference tournament. 1. Great Guard play. I think LCJ, Tyler Cheese and Channel Banks qualify, no? 2. Players who lead (and a player of the year candidate helps) LCJ again (and some of Tyler Cheese and Xeyrious Williams) 3. Tough guys - Cam Reese, Channel Banks, LCJ again - check 4. A coaching staff that can prepare -- the right way -- on a tight turnaround - hmm, think John Groce and his staff has demonstrated some capability here 5. A good recovery plan - playing at noon on Thursday should help, but come on training staff! ?

So as near as I can break it down here is where the top six can land. Akron wins they get the #1 seed, if they lose and BGSU wins, BGSU gets the top seed, simple as that. NIU will be either the three or four seed. Buffalo will be either 4,5 or 6, and in every scenario I could come up with they follow us around for a potential semis matchup. If we are the 1 they are the 4 or 5, if we are the 2 they are the 6. Ball State will be anywhere from 3 to 5. Kent cannot get a bye no matter what so they will be #5 or #6. None of these teams can drop to 7 or lower. And the bottom 6 are a "mish-mash of a hog waller".

Another reason to hate them (although honestly I give them a tiny bit of credit for this one), on their official football schedule for next year we are listed as TSDTR (That School Down The Road ?)

Better than Sophie's choice. ? And losing to Kent is never worth any perceived reward. I want total annihilation of PCCC so that they decide not to even bother with Cleveland. I want Mr. Pinky to be a brilliant shade of bright red all game. I want to hit them so hard that their future children will reconsider playing.

Just to be clear you're referring to the fact we loathed him because he was a great tournament coach and had our number, otherwise we have a couple more tournament appearances. Lost to his team in the championship in OT and by one point. Come one John you have some making up to do. ? And I was playing with the simulator a little more just to see who we might end us against, and I realized it doesn't matter. Pretty much any of the top teams who are likely to make it to Cleveland could beat the Zips if they don't play their game and play well. If its Ohio, Buffalo, and BGSU, bring it on (that is a very possible scenario and a pretty tough gauntlet). School record for wins is 27, so beating Kent and winning the tournament would tie the record and an NCAA win ... ?

You can find most of the details here. None of the spots have officially been decided yet

Please do 100 free throws every day ?

ABJ - nice coverage? Left is right, up is down, dogs and cats living together?! And I hope we keep Groce a while could be another great rivalry with he and Boals developing.

Whether NIU beat them at this point is irrelevant since they can't catch them, But it is not possible for Can't to get a bye. The best they can possibly do in record is 10-8 And they would have to tie both Buffalo and Ball State would both have to lose so that they would all have 10-8 records And if that happens they lose the tiebreaker to Ball State and Buffalo because in round robin between the three teams Ball State went 2-1, Buffalo 2-2 and Can't 1-2. Can't cannot get a bye. And in that scenario once Can't loses that ends up handing the 4 seed to Buffalo. The only way for Ball State to get the four seed is to have that three-way tie or they win and Buffalo loses. And at one point this season CMU led the MAC West with a 6-2 record And now they have lost nine straight.

Unbelievable win. And pat-pat-pat-pat-pat. ???

Yep I think the zips cut down the net simply because they're guaranteed to be no worse than co-champions. But even though they announced it on the broadcast I do not think they have the number one seed locked up by any stretch. I think they need to beat Kent almost no matter what else happens.

Xeyrious Williams is not the guy you want to foul

Well that's not necessarily a bad thing. Keeps us alive for the number one seed and maybe things even out when we see them.

How about we have LCJ stand out and shoot three pointers and have Xeyrious Williams drive to the basket?

I just have this feeling though the zips are going to come back in this one

46% from three and 62% overall. They have absolutely got to cool off from the second half or yet another chalk it up to the zips just catching somebody on fire again.

Well at least SportsNation thinks that we'll have an interesting tournament.

Good God unless the zips start buckling down they're going to give up 50 in the half

Northwest Ohio is kind of snakebit in the tournament. Even Toledo has only won it once and that was the first year, in 1980. Toledo and Bowling Green have each made it to the tournament finals four times since then and have never won it. Ball State has won the most at 7 championships but their last one came in 2000. The East has absolutely dominated the tournament since then, winning 16 of the 19 in that time. Every East team except BGSU has won it during that time (but MIami should be in that winless category in that time frame, grrrr, still mad. Doug "f*ing" Penno ? ?).

ESPN has predicted the winners of all 32 conference tournaments. While I am sure they would have put a lot more effort into it for us had we been named BIG-MAC or MAC-12 or something, they did select Akron to win it and it was unanimous.

You are correct that is the one I was referring to as pretty much holds all the tiebreakers, but even with that one, just having CMU finish ahead of Toledo doesn't even do it, there also have to be some ties in the middle of the pack so it's pretty unlikely. But yes, possible.

Boils down to this now - Zips have clinched the #2 seed and the only way they can get to #1 is winning one more game than BUGS. Unbelievably BUGS pretty much holds all of the tiebreakers. Aww, you know what, let them have the NIT, as long as we get the NCAA ?