Sorry to open a wound...

[Zip_ME87]

I respect GP1's laugh-o-meter more than the RPI, so I'll have to go with that for now. Remember, he who laughs last, laughs the loudest. TBD.

Even with my concerns over the Laugh-O-Meters ability to predict the game Saturday, it is still very accurate. Have not run the Level 4 diagnostic on it yet.....

Could you try a positive approach for a month, perhaps a day...even a minute? I don't think any Zips fan thought that the MAC Championship game would be anything other than close. But, for you to say that you would predict the way that it worked out is a LAUGH. I'm sure you knew that the Zips would have to score a 3-pointer to send it to overtime and then would lose in overtime. And if you mean that you predicted a loss, than that is a huge laugh. Had the result gone the other way, I could just as easily say I predicted a win.

I think you misunderstand the Laugh-O-Meter. At no point did the LOM register a laugh at the Zips on Saturday. It registered several at OU. The Zips should have won based upon the LOM results. If that isn't positive, I don't know what is.

I apologize...I did misunderstand.

[meatwad]

Others just laugh at the hyperbole. By all serious measures, the MAC is neither great nor awful when objectively compared with all other D1 conferences. It's worse than the best and better than the worst. In other words, it's just average.

The frustrating thing for an "old-timer" is the fact that, only 8-or-so years ago, the MAC was a lot better. We were getting NBA lottery picks, winning NCAA tourney games and getting at-large NCAA tourney bids.

If I'd only followed the MAC for the past 5 years, I wouldn't really care much about the level of play. But I've watched MAC hoops erode for a while, and I want to see it return to a level where you can realistically argue our upper-tier teams could compete with the best of the MVC, or the Butler's of the world.

2010 was a step back towards respectability for the MAC. But there's a long way to go.

Amen. I went to a lot of MAC tournaments where the Zips weren't even playing just to see good teams and good players. The MAC is down right now compared with its historic average.

Dave, you are definitely the RPI guru. But remember that the RPI formula changed recently to favor the smaller conferences more (by giving home wins less weight than away wins). So the gap would be bigger if a consistent formula was used I think. The MAC is nowhere near as good as we were just 4 or 5 years ago.

[GP1]

Vandy is a team we might have been able to stay with. This is where I think Zeke would have been a factor. Ogilvy is a nice veteran big man for them, but I think Zeke's athleticism would have given him fits. A lot of what Vandy does runs through Ogilvy and I think we could have kept it close here, but I think experience would have favored Vandy, but I don't think they would have beat us by more than 7. Possibility for an upset existed here if a few bounces go our way.

If you just look at starters, maybe, but I doubt it. The problem MAC schools have when Vandy rests their seven foot center is, they substitute with another seven foot center who is ready to be the starter next year when Ogilvy departs. Zeke should play more, but he can't play the entire game.

[GP1]

I respect GP1's laugh-o-meter more than the RPI, so I'll have to go with that for now. Remember, he who laughs last, laughs the loudest. TBD.

Even with my concerns over the Laugh-O-Meters ability to predict the game Saturday, it is still very accurate. Have not run the Level 4 diagnostic on it yet.....

Could you try a positive approach for a month, perhaps a day...even a minute? I don't think any Zips fan thought that the MAC Championship game would be anything other than close. But, for you to say that you would predict the way that it worked out is a LAUGH. I'm sure you knew that the Zips would have to score a 3-pointer to send it to overtime and then would lose in overtime. And if you mean that you predicted a loss, than that is a huge laugh. Had the result gone the other way, I could just as easily say I predicted a win.

I think you misunderstand the Laugh-O-Meter. At no point did the LOM register a laugh at the Zips on Saturday. It registered several at OU. The Zips should have won based upon the LOM results. If that isn't positive, I don't know what is.

I apologize...I did misunderstand.

No problem. This should give you a general understanding of how the Laugh-O-Meter works.

[Dave in Green]

Dave, you are definitely the RPI guru. But remember that the RPI formula changed recently to favor the smaller conferences more (by giving home wins less weight than away wins). So the gap would be bigger if a consistent formula was used I think. The MAC is nowhere near as good as we were just 4 or 5 years ago.

I'm just the official RPI copier and paster. Your point is well taken about the change in formula affecting the year-to-year RPI comparisons between the majors and mid-majors. But I'm mainly thinking in terms of comparing the MAC to similar mid-major conferences, not the top tier. So the MAC should be relatively as affected as the other mid-major conferences competing to be the "best of the rest."

The 10th overall best conference may or may not be what it used to be. But it's still a worthy and reasonable goal for the MAC to aspire to.

The WAC went from:

#20 in 2007-2008 to

#11 in 2008-2009 to

#10 in 1009-2010..

If the WAC can turn around that quickly, so can the MAC.

[Dave in Green]

I do want to make it clear that I'm only using RPI as a convenient, widely accepted measuring tool of relative performance. RPI alone will certainly not help a mid-major break through with the NCAA tournament selection committee, as the following item from CBS Sports graphically documents:

When the RPI doesn't matter: I lead with this category every Selection Sunday, and it never disappoints. What you need to know is that no BCS-affiliated school with a top 50 RPI was omitted this season, but four non-BCS-affiliated schools with top 50 RPIs were -- specifically Rhode Island (40), Wichita State (43), UAB (45) and Can't State (46). So the three best RPIs omitted from the field belonged to non-BCS affiliated schools for the sixth consecutive season, which means a good RPI can save you if you're from a power league, but it won't help much if you're not.

CBS Sports Link

[2Ball]

4 seeds= Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, Purdue & Maryland.

I see all those teams as beatable for the Zips. DAMMIT!!!

Sorry for the Monday morning reality check, but the Zips couldn't beat any of these teams on their best day.

All of these teams are near the top of their respective conferences. I saw Vandy take apart South Carolina in Columbia this year and they would destroy the Zips. Maryland finished near the top of a real conference as did Wisconsin and Purdue. UofA finished second in the worst conference in the country and was destroyed twice by the regular season champion. The Zips lost to a bad OU team in the MAC Championship. There is no way they beat either of these teams.

Next year, I need everyone to do me a favor. I asked a similar favor after football season when I asked everyone to stop posting as if it is the 1950s and it has taken a little. Next year, I need everyone to go to a top level conference game somewhere driveable from NE Ohio...meaning the Big East or Big Ten. Go with an open mind and really think about the Zips position and college basketball and ask whether or not they could really be even competitive in one of those leagues. If you come to the conclusion the Zips fall short, it doesn't make you a bad fan.

I go to both ACC and SEC games here in the south and I can no longer convince myself what I watch at a MAC basketball game is even similar.

GP1.... If the zips would have made the tourney then they would not have lost to a bad OU team. Just the 2 bad losses to the regular season champion.

[Z.I.P.]

Dave, you are definitely the RPI guru. But remember that the RPI formula changed recently to favor the smaller conferences more (by giving home wins less weight than away wins). So the gap would be bigger if a consistent formula was used I think. The MAC is nowhere near as good as we were just 4 or 5 years ago.

I'm just the official RPI copier and paster. Your point is well taken about the change in formula affecting the year-to-year RPI comparisons between the majors and mid-majors. But I'm mainly thinking in terms of comparing the MAC to similar mid-major conferences, not the top tier. So the MAC should be relatively as affected as the other mid-major conferences competing to be the "best of the rest."

The 10th overall best conference may or may not be what it used to be. But it's still a worthy and reasonable goal for the MAC to aspire to.

The WAC went from:

#20 in 2007-2008 to

#11 in 2008-2009 to

#10 in 1009-2010..

If the WAC can turn around that quickly, so can the MAC.

Somehow those numbers don't pass the Great Zip in Paradise's smell-O-meter, but that may be because I've been watching the particularly smelly results of the Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors all those years. I think the change in the WAC is the result of the OTHER one-time smelly clubs, like New Mexico State, Idaho State and San Jose State pouring just a modicum of cologne over their rotting corpses. Kudos to the Aggies for securing what was it -- a 12 seed?

[Dave in Green]

I get your point about the bottom-feeding Rainbows and the 4 other teams with RPI of 172 or less. But simple math dictates that a 9-team conference with 4 teams having RPI of 79 or better is going to end up with a pretty decent conference average. This is a similar team RPI distribution to where the MAC was when they were the #10 conference in 2004-2005 RPI, which many of us look back on so fondly.

2009-2010 WAC RPI

32 Utah State

54 New Mexico State

73 Nevada

79 Louisiana Tech

172 Idaho

183 San Jose State

185 Fresno State

203 Boise State

250 Hawaii

2004-2005 MAC RPI

46 Buffalo

52 Miami (OH)

58 Ohio

69 Can't State

77 Akron

97 Western Michigan

105 Toledo

109 Bowling Green

120 Ball State

185 Northern Illinois

237 Marshall

246 Central Michigan

267 Eastern Michigan