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Well, just when we think that unexpected things happen in the MAC.... The Final opponents tomorrow night are going to be just who everyone expected.

I'm laughing when I say this, but Kent was a real disappointment this year. They should have contended, and they didn't. Yes, I realize that Hall was a big part of their recent success, but they still laid a major egg by only going 9-9 in conference play. Pinky should be on the chopping block.

I remember reading that original article when he became a finalist, and feeling that this wouldn't happen because he was one of the candidates they had questions about. I'm glad we still have him. I hope he does much more before he leaves.

Yes, I hope that's exactly what he does.

I think most of this has been addressed already, and most of it very recently in other threads. But even if it may not be visible to you, I think you can get some idea by looking at the game thread, and this one. Things such people questioning why a certain player didn't play more last night, especially down the stretch. And how someone likely turned the game because of a lack-of-emotional-control technical foul. I probably should have commented on this earlier. I think your suggested approach to this situation is exactly what needs to happen. I said almost these exact words about a week ago. Decisions need to be made now, rather than later. However, we might not agree on how easily these these types of things are even "fixable". I think too often it can only be fixed via the exit door.

I'm not. I think around the 2nd week of February, this season was headed for complete disaster after that string of blowout losses. He deserves credit for getting them to play the rest of the way. We even got a couple of wins here at the end to give everyone something to get excited about before it was over. I was just hoping that this season didn't leave us with the task of fighting our way up from last place going into 2018-2019.

Someone else said Swiech. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say closer to Bardo. But Bardo still gets the edge because he could hold onto a basketball.

Absolutely.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Just call it the way it is. No matter who's the coach.

I think a couple of the criticisms about the coaching are probably a bit harsh and emotional, because our season just ended with a major thud. But at the same time, I think a few of you can now stop coming to this forum repeatedly to declare him the Master Of March and "his teams play their best basketball in March", and then come back later to insist that there must be some other reason why we lost. He's now had 6 years in a row (and 2 more at OU) where his teams got knocked out of their conference tournament in the Quarterfinal round, or earlier. Just call it what it is. A few of you know that you would have sentenced our previous coach to a Public Flogging if he engineered a collapse like this.

EMU is 2-11 from the 3-line. That needs to continue.

Don't be so hard on yourself. If I remember correctly, it gave Kent a free timeout because they didn't have any left? I think that was the only thing that was questioned. But I think you'd find that most coaches would want to talk to their players in that situation. And you can see why, in this situation. It was the right move. However, if you're on the offensive side, every coach has a different philosophy. Some like to run the ball up the floor right away against a backpeddling defense, and others like to set up a play.

You are absolutely correct. Let me also add that I hope everyone else here likewise uses good judgement in deciding what sensitive information to blast out on a public forum, based on how much they respect our alma mater, and how much they value their own particular personal, social, business, and employment relationships with the UofA.

#1 Seed SHOULD be playing the first game.

13,000 people from the Dayton area would be there to see it (minus the sections for the 4 teams playing that night). A potential recruit might see that as a positive. Who knows. And for Akron, we'd at least be able to say that we technically won a game in the Big Dance. And earn the honor of getting beat by the #1 seed by 70 points. So, I'm mostly agreeing with you. But, there might be a positive or two. But we'd have to WIN.

1) While there's obviously a lot of Zips fans that want to see Keith do well, I don't expect Akron fans attending a pre-game for our own tournament game to be hooting and hollering for a Duquesne basketball game. 2) I just hope that enough Akron fans make the trip up there tonight to call it a "bar crowd".

Fair enough. Like I said earlier, the only way to avoid it is to hope for a lot of bottom-feeder teams from low level conferences to win their conference tournaments.

Certainly less pressure and expectations when you're the underdog. Maybe that's why we've won this tournament as a #5 and #6 seed.

That's darn near a 100% Guarantee. For God's sake, our 2011 tournament championship team that won 23 games was a #15 Maybe they wouldn't look solely at the record, but we'd be a last place team in a crappy conference winning a conference tournament. Book it in Dayton.

With the Snowstorm moving in this afternoon..... I'm revising my estimate to: 20 family members 5 random school officials 2 diehard fans

Just to correct you, It's Gonzaga, Duke and Kansas as the only remaining schools on that list at the end of last year along with Akron. Ohio State dropped off.

I've been to the games in Dayton before. It's actually a fun part of the tournament because all of the matchups are against equal seeds, so it's far more competitive than most of the opening games later in the week. The City of Dayton rolls out the red carpet, and the UD fans pack the place for all sessions. It's a lot of fun. Generally, the 16 vs. 16 game on both Tuesday and Wednesday night are teams that won conference tournaments, but had really bad records, or sometimes even losing records. So, to your point, I think it would probably be nearly impossible for us to avoid a 16-seed play-in game, unless there was a lot of really bad teams that pulled tournament mega-upsets in numerous conferences. The good news is that I'm guessing this would be the closest venue for us to travel.

That's funny. Actually, I was pretty surprised when I saw recently that the listed attendance for last year's Quarterfinal vs. EMU was only about 2,000 people. But, that was for a NOON game, the first game of the day. I didn't even realize it was that low, but I was probably too focused on the game to look behind me to see who else was there.

We won in Buffalo in 2017 AND 2016

??? I can at least tell you that we won ALL 3 GAMES against Eastern last year, and BOTH GAMES the year before that. And in some of those games, I know we scored in the 80s or 90s. And I think the 2016 MAC Quarterfinal game was the only one that was really in any jeopardy.