MAC 2025-26 SZN

[Rufus]

To quote my 9 year old son playing Fortnite, "We're cooked like fried chicken." 

[NWAkron]

2 minutes ago, Rufus said:

To quote my 9 year old son playing Fortnite, "We're cooked like fried chicken." 

BG is legit.  

[Let'sGoZips94]

Ohio loses another one, this time 70-58 to LMU. Darn.

[kreed5120]

Miami down 8 at the half against 1-6 UNCG.

[Let'sGoZips94]

EMU currently up by 13 vs Cincy. 

 

Toledo got smoked by Belmont. 

 

Buffalo stayed undefeated by beating Bucknell by 2.

 

BUGS beat VMI. 

 

Miami OH came back to comfortably beat UNCG. 

[MDZip]

Big win by EMU. I wonder what the spread was for their players. Always good wins for the MAC though. 

[kreed5120]

EMU pulls off the upset.

[Illini Zip]

Eastern upsets Cinci. 

[Illini Zip]

That game dropped Cinci about 35 spots on Kenpom and moved EMU up ~130 spots. I absolutely love it.

 

 

Edited November 27 by Illini Zip

[UAZipster0305]

1 hour ago, Illini Zip said:

Eastern upsets Cinci. 

Wish we could get a signature win against a marquee name brand school like Cincy! Good for the MAC as a whole though.

[RoyalBlu]

Feel pretty comfortable saying the Zips are clearly the top MAC team this season, as expected. But it must be said, overall, the entire league seems to be deeper with teams capable of pulling upsets or two over the course of the season, even without contending for the best team in the league.

 

Games at Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green, and Buffalo all look like trap games right now, to go along with road games at Miami and Kent State. No way does it look like Akron loses all five of those. But are there one or two that give you pause.

Just curious, because it looks like the fight for those last two MAC Tournament seeds is going to be pretty tight, which means one or two of these teams could be both desperate and dangerous.

 

[kreed5120]

42 minutes ago, RoyalBlu said:

Feel pretty comfortable saying the Zips are clearly the top MAC team this season, as expected. But it must be said, overall, the entire league seems to be deeper with teams capable of pulling upsets or two over the course of the season, even without contending for the best team in the league.

 

Games at Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green, and Buffalo all look like trap games right now, to go along with road games at Miami and Kent State. No way does it look like Akron loses all five of those. But are there one or two that give you pause.

Just curious, because it looks like the fight for those last two MAC Tournament seeds is going to be pretty tight, which means one or two of these teams could be both desperate and dangerous.

 

I agree. I don't see us going 17-1 this year. I think it will be more like 15-3.

[Blue & Gold]

Kent State is tough, and Delrecco Gillespie is playing as well as anyone in the country. I think we're going to have to bring our B+ game to beat them & Amani's going to have to bring his A game.

[RoyalBlu]

Gillespie has had a strong start to the season, no doubt. But his line was interesting in the recent game vs. Cleveland State, which was the second time they played him/Kent in a week. 12 pts, 11 reb. 8 TO. vs. what he did the first time they played, 30/13/1.

 

He's going to get his rebounds.  But CSU cut his scoring more than in half, and forced him into a bunch of turnovers. Whatever CSU did, defensively, is now on tape for others to mimic. It will be interesting to see what his game (and Kent's) look like a month from now.

 

Edited November 28 by RoyalBlu

[Let'sGoZips94]

I don't quite know how good Kent is. They haven't played a true road game, they haven't played a top 100 KenPom team, and 3 of their games have come against two teams ranked 268 or worse in KenPom (2 of those were Gillespie's best games). 

 

I'm going to reserve any (dead) flowers I may have for Kent until their @ Portland/ @ UMass/@ Purdue stretch (their only true road games). 

[HoopsFan03]

Mac games are always tough except last year when we kicked everyone's butt.  

[csims0917]

1 hour ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

I don't quite know how good Kent is. They haven't played a true road game, they haven't played a top 100 KenPom team, and 3 of their games have come against two teams ranked 268 or worse in KenPom (2 of those were Gillespie's best games). 

 

I'm going to reserve any (dead) flowers I may have for Kent until their @ Portland/ @ UMass/@ Purdue stretch (their only true road games). 

Even then I don’t think we will truly know til January 

[Let'sGoZips94]

10 minutes ago, csims0917 said:

Even then I don’t think we will truly know til January 

 

Correct but I'll have a better idea based on their ability to handle adversity on the road. It's a lot easier to stay in and/or pull away in close games at home than it is on the road. They have 6 guys who are offensive threats - 4 are double digit scorers and a 5th is averaging 9 ppg - and the 6th is a freshman sniper from St. Iggy. They have 3 more guys who play decent minutes but are not threats offensively. Based on what I've seen when I've watched their games, they are not as defensively focused this year compared to previous Kent teams, meaning they rely on hot shooting to win games. They've given up 100+ points twice and nearly a third time to 299th KenPom Cleveland State (95 pts in their 1st meeting on a neutral court). They're also quite small. Gillespie is 6'8" and Whaley is 6'7". Those are their top 2 post players by far. Whaley is also built like a North Pole Left Tackle - short and half the weight in the buttocks. Morgan Safford is their next tallest contributor at 6'4" and the rest of their guards are 6'2" or shorter. Without a lot of versatility and size, from what I've seen, they have 2 ways to win - hot shooting night or an off night from the opponent. Both are much easier to accomplish at home vs. on the road, so that stretch in late December will give us a decent idea of this analysis of them is accurate. 

[Let'sGoZips94]

 

3rd worst SOS belongs to Miami OH. That's pathetic. 

[clarkwgriswold]

49 minutes ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

3rd worst SOS belongs to Miami OH. That's pathetic. 

 

That's not fair.  They played Indiana (East) and Trinity Christian is among one of the finest basketball programs in Palos Heights, Illinois.

[72 Roo]

14 hours ago, clarkwgriswold said:

 

That's not fair.  They played Indiana (East) and Trinity Christian is among one of the finest basketball programs in Palos Heights, Illinois.

That depends on which block of Palos Heights you are referring to. 

[Let'sGoZips94]

Balls with 37 pts against Lafayette - in the entire game. 

 

Wow. 

[MDZip]

We've moved up to 57 in KenPom. Buffalo is still undefeated but is ranked 204th. The Flushes also thumped Shenango. They are at 125. 

[csims0917]

Miami is at 130 and BGSU 133. Should be a really fun MAC conference 

[RoyalBlu]

Here's the bottom line: Last season Akron was the clear best team in a bad league. This season Akron is the clear best team in a pretty good league. And it's not even close.