OU Dude

no prob. The A10 signed a TV contract with ESPN/CBS/NBC in 2012 worth $40M over 8 years, that's $5M/yr divided by 14 teams for an average of $357,143 per team. Its a little harder to determine how much they earn from the Tournament payout as those are units paid over 6 years, etc. but I did manage to find total payout from 2011 and the A10 earned $5,751,936 (the MAC earned $1,677,648). On average each of the 14 teams in the A10 would have received $410,852. As a football Independent and full member of the A10 this is what UMass's annual revenue intake looks like- $357,143- TV contract (A10) $410,852- NCAA Tourney (A10) $307,553- FBS Playoffs (Independent) $1,078,548- Annual payout as A10/Indy By comparison, here is an approx. annual revenue intake for UMass as a full, 13th member of the MAC- $769,230- TV contract (MAC) $129,959- NCAA Tourney (MAC) $1,229,508- FBS Playoffs (MAC) $2,128,697- Anual payout as MAC full member. Has anyone at UMass bothered to do the math?

The previous MAC/ESPN deal was for 10yrs/$14M. The New deal is an additional $24M on the final 3 years of the previous deal and then 10yrs/$100M. Although not huge, UMass would have got a piece of that as a football only member of the MAC, but as an Independent they will recieve $0 for TV money. And in regards to the payout for the College Football Playoffs in 2014 the 5 G5 conferences shared $75M which comes out to an avg. of $1.22M, depending on team and conference performance. By comparision, the 3 Independent teams (BYU, Army, Navy) split a total of $922,658, or an avg. of $307,553. That's 1/4 the payout for the avg G5 team. There's no way UMass can survive as an Independent, not to mention the nigthmare of scheduling. UMass currently has 1 home game scheduled for 2016. Their affiliation ends at midnight on the day of their last game of the 2015, regular or bowl. I would not be surprised if UMass has a change of heart at the 11th hour and accepts full memebership.

He doesn't think it it because there's no thought put it into it. For each league's autobid the lowest RPI is automatically listed unless there is compelling case to not do so.

2012- #13 Ohio, 27 wins - had lead in final minute at 7th ranked L'ville before losing by 5. - won at Northern Iowa by 17pts when UNI was 10-1 with RPI of 2. - finished December 12-1 with votes in AP poll. - of 51 teams seeded better than Ohio only 7 had more wins. - 7 teams with fewer wins and worse RPI were seeded better than Ohio, all were high majors. The MAC can get an at-large bid again someday but its not going to because of the specific achievements of the next best available MAC team, its going to be because of the overall achievements of the entire conference. We're making progress but perceptions won't be changed over night.

In case you missed it, Hurley whined to the press and accused Saul Phillips of being unprofessional for stepping onto the court and giving a fist pump during a stoppage with 0.6 seconds left in the game. The officals were at the scorer's table reviewing the previous play, his actions had no impact on the game. Bobby is a real class act. http://www.athensmessenger.com/blogs/bobcat_blog/hurley-takes-offense-at-phillips-fist-pump/article_45f0b2ce-a714-5abe-b4e9-16f0c7d124d8.html The return trip to Buffalo should be interesting.

Akron's bench defintely beats Ohio's but I don't think its even close in comparison. Treg Setty and Isaiah Johson have similar stats as do Stevie and Deji, but that's where it ends for Ohio, they only have 3 more available scholarship players and none of them see the floor much, if at all. There's nobody available this year that comes close to being able to contribute like Kretzer or McAdams. Akron's bench went 6 deep and scored 44pts in 93 minutes, Ohio's bench went 3 deep and scored 16pts in 42 minutes. Advantage Akron. The Zip's might have been victims of their own success- by getting hot from the outside they weren't forced to push the ball inside and get Ohio into foul trouble. This had a double negative impact for the Zips because it kept them off the foul line and it kept Ohio's bench players on the bench. Campbell is foul prone and in games where Ohio has struggled he and/or Ndour have gotten into foul trouble early and been forced to sit. Setty is the only servicable F replacement off the bench and his skill set is a big drop off from those two. After that its sophomore Wadley Mompremier who averages 8 minutes and 1.5pts/gm and graduate transfer Chandler Thomas whose been on the floor a total of 1 minute this year. If I'm Dambrot I'm running kamikazis at Campbell and Ndour early and often in the return game and forcing the issue. BobcatTV put together a game recap video, it's obviously heavy on the Ohio highlights but there's some Akron highlights in there too-

As I mentioned before, playing Ohio is like playing Russian Roulette, Bean and Stevie are going to dribble down the court and chuck up ill advised 3s all day long, ocassionally they get hot and find that one bullet in the chamber. Add this one to another exciting and entertaining matchup between these two teams. Zips did a great job of exploiting Ohio's lazy perimeter defense all night long but was a little surprised to see Ibitayo only get 22 minutes, Akron was +13 when he was on the floor and -14 when he was on the bench. Looking forward to the rematch in Akron.

Stevie began the season as the starting PG but terrible shot selection and bad execution got him benched. He and Bean both prefer to dribble down the court and chuck up a hero 3 without attempting to pass it into the post first, and when you're shooting 22% from 3 on the season like Stevie is those decisions are killer. As for the rivalry slipping a bit I think that's just a perception thing for Zips fans because Jim Christian lost 5 out of the last 6, its been a while since you guys have felt the agony of defeat. But if you look at those 6 games individually everyone of them was a thriller. Hoping for another Convo Classic tonight. Good luck..

playing the Bobcats this year is like playin Russian Roulette. 5 out of 6 times you squeeze the trigger and you get nothing but a *click*, but every once in a while you get blasted. It happened to Buffalo, it happened to DePaul. Ohio has the talent to win on any given night but they lack the consistancy and the discipline to be a regular threat. There is no rhyme or reason to figuring out which version the Zips will see tomorrow but the odds are slim that they'll see the unbeatable version of the Bobcats.

the biggest variable for OU's attendance is always whether or not the students are on campus, it not only affects the students' attendance but I think it also affects the locals' attendance because the students and band are such a big part of the overall game experience and its not the same without them. Just a theory though.

3 coaches in 4 years finally takes its toll. When Groce left Ohio lost commitments from Evan Bradds (Belmont) and Caris LaVert (Michigan). When Christian left Ohio lost commitments from 2 JUCOs who are now contributing +20min/gm for USF and Buffalo, and a 4 star freshman now with the Vols. Add to that 2 high major transfers and 2 promising freshmen that never made it onto the court for various reasons and you have a whole lot of talent that got away.

I can shed a little light on Ohio. Ohio has 12 scholarship players, 2 are out all season per transfer rules and a 3rd is a grad student that would be eligible immediately but there's been some sort of clerical hold up with his records from his under grad. He should be able to play soon but at best will be a role player coming off the bench will limted minutes. That left 9 eligible for last night, the two that didn't play were RS Fr Harley who was just cleared after being out with a nagging back injury and Monpremier, a sophomore big that is underdeveloped and slow. Stevie has been benched because he's shooting .276 from the floor and .171 from 3. He's also .478 from the foul line. He and and our other senior guard, Bean Willis are sloppy on defense, don't pass the ball well, and chuck up 3s like they're DJ Cooper, but they're not. Its going to be a frustrating season. Congrats on the dominant win over the Broncos, I'm guessing a little payback from last season felt good.

I can sympathize with y'all on this one, the feed for Ohio's games are less than desirable as well, its not uncommon to have the camera operator forget to follow the ball and sometimes appears to have walked off, leaving the camera facing one basket as the game moves up and down the court. Today the issue was with the audio, they would forget to reconnect the radio feed after the timeouts. But fret not, help is on the way. For those that don't know, as part of the renegotiated contract with ESPN every MAC school is required to upgrade their basketball broadcast operations to meet ESPN's standards, that includes announcers, multiple camera angles, instant relay, ESPN's score graphics with shot clock and timeout icons, the whole 9 yards. An additional $24m was added on to the last 3 years of the original deal with ESPN before the new 10yr deal kicks in in 2017, I'm assumingly those additonal funds are to be used towards upgrading the bball broadcasts. The MAC has 4 years to complete the upgrade and a tentative schedule of 3 schools/yr will be used to spread out the costs. In year 1 (2014) Buffalo, CMU and Northern Illinois were chosen to be the first to upgrade, likely because they already had most of the infrastructure in place. As a result ALL home games for those teams are being streamed on ESPN3 and as more schools upgrade all of their homegames will be on ESPN3 as well. If you have access, go check out an ESPN3 game replay from UB, CMU or NIU, the quality is full on ESPN, none of this bush league Sports Time Ohio nonsense with their cheesy graphics and inability to rack up a replay in a timely fashion. The only noticable difference is the on-air talent, that's still going to be local and home grown. So believe it or not but your prayers have already been answered and its going to be even better than you could have hoped for. The only unknown at this point is how quickly will you get the upgrade, will it be year 2, 3 or 4? In my very biased opinion it is in the best interest of the MAC to make sure that Ohio, Akron and Toledo are the next 3 to get the upgrade next year. Those are the 3 best programs with the biggest home crowds, they need to be the most visible. Have no idea who or how these things get determined but keep your fingers crossed.

I'm not convinced they are yet either but I would give them more credit for their wins. North Texas beat Ball State and played #6 Georgia tough. Marshall beat their first two opponents by a combined 107-14 and took Virginia Tech to OT. Both teams will win a lot of games this year. As for Ohio, here's a couple of tweets from their beat writer about the Offensive Line that have me very concerned- "Ohio has lost 10 veteran OL since end of last season (4 grads, 1 did not return, 5 currently injured). Smoke and mirrors time" "True frosh Durrell Wood expected to start at UA at right guard. Current starting lineup is 3 sophomore, RS freshman, and true freshman." Hows the front 7 for Akron this year? Have you had success stopping the run? Ohio is hell bent on establishing the un so they'll run it up the gut for no gain an agonizing 25 times a game.

I'll take a stab at it... I don't think Bobcat fans will be looking past Akron at all. It's a combo of two things- 1. Good Ohio teams find ways to lose games they shouldn't (think Miami last year, Buffalo the year before that, Can't the year before that, etc.), and 2. Akron has shown that they are progressing. It hasn't translated into the Win column yet for the Zips but its close, and the Bobcats don't want to be the first to fall. Ohio had a bye week this week and was able to get a lot of banged up guys some much needed rest. They'll be ready and not looking past Akron. As for Ohio's competition, It's not stellar but its better than presented. Throw out the high and the low- Lville and FCS, and you've got two decent 2-2 CUSA teams- North Texas and Marshall. Marshall crushed Miami and lost to Virginia Tech in OT while North Texas beat Ball State (4-1) and gave #9 Georgia a scare for a a couple of quarters last week. So what does it all mean? Solich decided to go real easy in fall camp to avoid injuries and Ohio came out soft, unprepared and still lost 7 guys to injuries against Lville. They are thin on the O line and lost the 1 returner starter in their D front 7 in week 1. But there have been some young guys that have stepped and some of the injured vets may be back next week. Last year Ohio started hot and faded through the year as the injuries stacked up and the competition got tougher. This feels like started off low and are getting better each week. I expect a good game next week, both teams have a lot to play for. best of luck.

that must be Manti's girlfriend on the left.

I'm ambivalent towards the alternate uniform craze, it doesn't get me excited but if the players and students like it and it can generate some interest in the program then so be it. Some of you may recall Ohio getting black uniforms a couple of years ago and the . Last year they added a green helmet to the mix. Now Ohio has 3 basic uniforms- all whites, all greens, all blacks, that they can mix and match into 27 different combos. They wore a different combo for each home game last year, some looked good, others not so much. (side note- the equip mgrs refer the unis as stormtroopers, yodas, and vaders. haha) Where I see value in alternate uniforms and why I think its worth considering for the Zips at some point is it a good excuse to create an event around a game. For example, Ohio has taken their 2 November weeknight MACtion games and made one into a " " game and the other a "Greenout" game where the players wear the all black or all green uniforms and the students dress accordingly. Silly? yes. Original? no. Effective? yes. Attendance for those games has been between 17K-19K with strong turnout from the students. It's worth considering once the wins start happening and the students and fans start getting engaged again.

Ohio home attendance vs MAC opponents- 11,109- Akron 10,846- BGSU 8,483- Can't State 8,428- Miami 7,648- NIU 7,388- Toledo 5,932- EMU 4,846- Buffalo (students on break) I don't post these numbers just to be a gloating Ohio fan but to push back on the idea that Akron can't develop strong attendance numbers while in the MAC. If Ohio can do it Akron can too. But the JAR's capacity won't allow Akron to beat any of those numbers except the Buffalo game, regardless if you're in the MAC, B1G or Big East. A new arena doesn't just allow for more seats, but for better seats. I think the Zips would benefit greatly from having a proper student section and better band placement. A rowdy, unified student section down on the floor, close to the action makes the overall game experience more exciting, which in turn will attract more locals and alums. Just my 2 cents.

that last one has been permanently erased from my databanks.

+11K fans, including 5K students, didn't come out on a Wednesday night in Feb to watch the Zips beat the Cats in OT because there was nothing else to do in Athens, its not that simple. If small towns= higher attendance then there are plenty of small towns in the MAC who should be doing a lot better. Outsiders point of view- Zips need a new arena. It's the next step. How much more can Dambrot and the team do, really? 6 MAC title games in a row, 3 NCAA appearances, a million 20+ win seasons in a row, and on and on. Sure, making a run in the Tourney would be nice, but at this point its just the next step, not a game changer. Look at what BGSU did- they fleeced a bunch of well meaning old men and got them to fund a new high school gym that seats 4,700. Its a nice, new flashing neon sign that tells students, alums, locals- we're small time now and forever. Akron needs to make a statement, but the right statement. Doesn't have to be too big and flashy, 7k-8k would be plenty. If you build it, they will come.

Ohio's lead scorer for the last 3 years was their PG and they managed to get by. But I agree with the surprise at Akron listed as 4th, doesn't make since. If you gutted the entire roster and filled it with 13 freshman I'd still give Dambrot a shot at the top 3. Ohio has more pieces of the puzzle to replace and more question marks, not sure how they wold be ranked above the Zips at this point. Luckily for all of us these things are decided on the courts.

Article written by OU graduate and former bball player Reggie Rankin. Traitor!

consistent winning is starting to pay off for both programs and one of Akron's strengths that I hope Ohio can emulate is Coach stability. Knowing that the coaching staff is committed to the program long term is attractive to a recruit with so much change and turnover these days. JC talks about putting roots down in Athens, I hope he follows KD's lead on that one.

for now count me as cautiously optimistic about Christian and the Bobcats going forward. Some good accomplishments last year but the team came up short of expectations, probably enough blame to go around to everyone. I think I saw Ivo Baltic on a milk carton. Time to move forward. Excited about '14-'15 with Rivals 4 star top 100 Rio Adams transferring from Kansas and Rivals 3 star Tariq Owens verbally committing. Owens was just upgraded to 4 star #86 by Scout for what thats worth, so he seems to be a good get on paper. Will need to beef up if he wants to bang around in the MAC. 2013 will be an interesting transition after Cooper and company. There will be 3 freshmen- 3star DJ Wingfield 6'5", unranked Antonio Campbell 6'8", and unranked Wadley Mompremier 6'9". The Zips had offered Mompremier and at the Bobcat Caravan Christian was really excited about him, so we'll see. Ohio also has 3 transfers starting in 2013- Bean Willis is a Rivals 4star top 100 recruit who played 2 seasons at Texas Tech before transferring last year. He'll be taking over at PG. unranked Treg Setty is a 6'9" sophomore transfer from Southern Illinois, Groce had offered him out of high school. The final mystery piece for Ohio is a JC transfer, 6'9" Maurice Ndour. He was born in Senegal, played HS in Japan, JC in in NY, speaks 5 languages, not your typical college kid. Ndour had offers from WVU and UC among others. I think his ability to quickly transition to D1 ball will be critical for the Cats this year. Here's a highlight vid for those interested- Bottom line- lots of question marks for Ohio next year but I agree with others who say that this is a 2 team league and both Ohio and Akron are at the point where its more about reloading then rebuilding. I'm ready for November.

I like it but don't call it the MAC Challenge, call it the Battle of the Buckeye State and get as many instate schools as possible. Akron, Cant, OU, Xavier, UC, Dayton, maybe Cleveland State and Wright State too. OSU would almost be shamed into joining, we'll let them host. I think ESPN would be all over that and would be a great draw.