MAC SPRING Meetings

[Zippy87]

3 hours ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

Did the format accomplish that goal or did the teams? 

 

The 2 seed hasn't missed a Championship Game yet in the current format. See my previous post for who the 1 seeds were that missed. 

 

Both. But winning three games when everyone has equal rest vs winning two games with one or two less games than your opponent is a pretty clear advantage for the higher seed. 

[RoyalBlu]

If the conference tournament is designed to make money ... the current format accomplishes that.

 

If the MAC wants to reward the regular-season Champion, either don't have a tournament ... or seed the regular-season champion direct to the MAC TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONSHIP game.

 

No in between bullshit.

 

The rest of the league fights to play the champion. For the well-rested champion, it's one game, win or go home.

 

Think of the crowd - both in the arena and on TV - on Saturday night to see if a rested undefeated Miami could finish the job, no matter what MAC team they played.

 

[ZippyRulz]

Or give all the Wagon Wheel points and trophies to the regular season champs and just let the MAC tourneys be for advancing to the NCAA tourneys.

 

[GP1]

I think the MAC BB tournament is a really good event for Cleveland. I wouldn't want to see it go away. 

 

I would like to see the better regular season teams rewarded. 

 

I'll throw this idea out. I'm not even sure how I feel about it. What if instead of a tournament in Cleveland, the MAC had a best of three championship series in Cleveland between the first and second place regular season teams?  Potentially three straight days? Winner goes to March Madness. 

[RoyalBlu]

3 hours ago, GP1 said:

I think the MAC BB tournament is a really good event for Cleveland. I wouldn't want to see it go away. 

 

I would like to see the better regular season teams rewarded. 

 

I'll throw this idea out. I'm not even sure how I feel about it. What if instead of a tournament in Cleveland, the MAC had a best of three championship series in Cleveland between the first and second place regular season teams?  Potentially three straight days? Winner goes to March Madness. 

 

The problem with this scenario above ... it does not take into effect injuries have on a season - overall or in part. I remember one season Sczerbiak injuried his wrist and missed 4-6 games with Miami going .500 in that stretch, enough to cost them the regular season title even though they were clearly the best team. In other years teams have lost players for the season, and did not become 'dangerous' until late in the season with a new lineup.

 

In short, while the MAC is indeed a 1-bid league, it is not a 1-team conference. Most seasons anywhere from three to five teams would be solid NCAA Tournament representatives, even though all of them are likely-probably-definitely losers in the first round of the tournament.

 

On Cleveland's neutral court, one of those 3-5 teams is 90-percent going to win the tournament. I'm good with that.

 

The MAC Tournament, in my mind, celebrates the season. Guarantee the regular season champ a NIT bid, no matter what its NET/Kenpom ranking is. Give that team a financial reward for winning the regular season title. That, plus the No. 1 seed should be a viable reward.

 

But don't fuk with the tournament. 

 

Again, I would love to have/hear Dustin publicly stand up for this. As a former MAC player and now head coach I would be shocked if he wants a double-bye or any other gimmick messing with the current tournament format.

 

[Let'sGoZips94]

Odd.

 

MAC/Sun Belt Extend Challenge Through 2028-29 Season

[NWAkron]

3 hours ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

Odd.

 

MAC/Sun Belt Extend Challenge Through 2028-29 Season

downright perplexing.

[exit322]

4 hours ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

Odd.

 

MAC/Sun Belt Extend Challenge Through 2028-29 Season

 

Eh, it adds decent games in the mid-major world and probably gets a couple on the television.  I see the reason to do it.

 

It's not life-changing, but it's not that bad.

Edited Thursday at 08:07 PM by exit322

[kreed5120]

I actually like the series TBH. I know some expressed they would prefer to pair with a different conference or have a multi-conference event, but that's not happening. At least not in the immediate future.

 

The SunBelt and MAC are two relatively comparable conferences and in fact the SunBelt has more wins than the MAC in the series so we're not in a position to look down on them.

Edited Thursday at 09:25 PM by kreed5120

[zippy5]

Whys it perplexing? Because a couple random Internet strangers said a couple anonymous coaches didn't like it?

[Let'sGoZips94]

46 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

Whys it perplexing? Because a couple random Internet strangers said a couple anonymous coaches didn't like it?

 

Maybe there was truth to that?

[exit322]

15 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

I actually like the series TBH. I know some expressed they would prefer to pair with a different conference or have a multi-conference event, but that's not happening. At least not in the immediate future.

 

The SunBelt and MAC are two relatively comparable conferences and in fact the SunBelt has more wins than the MAC in the series so we're not in a position to look down on them.

 

We're not in a position to look down on anybody. 

 

It'd be nice to have a couple of these agreements with different mid major conferences.  Give more good regular season games leading up to Cleveland.

[zippy5]

9 hours ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

Maybe there was truth to that?

Maybe. But whoever opposed it was obviously outnumbered

[Let'sGoZips94]

1 hour ago, exit322 said:

 

We're not in a position to look down on anybody. 

 

It'd be nice to have a couple of these agreements with different mid major conferences.  Give more good regular season games leading up to Cleveland.

 

I don't think not liking the MAC/Sun Belt Challenge is "talking down" to the Sun Belt. In its current format, it has yet to suit either conference. When the Sun Belt has had top 50-75 teams, the MAC's best teams have been ~100+. When the MAC has had top 50-75 teams, the Sun Belt's best teams have been 100+. For the challenge to be beneficial, the top teams each year need to consistently be in the same range for NET. Taking up valuable dates in November & February is expensive for the resume. If the extension allows for conference expansion discussions, that works for me. Otherwise, this is puzzling. 

 

54 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

Maybe. But whoever opposed it was obviously outnumbered

 

Or circumstances changed. Would've love to be a fly on the wall when these discussions were taking place. 

[kreed5120]

I guess I don't really view it as "expensive" as I don't see what it's really costing either conference. The majority of these SunBelt/MAC schools if they weren't playing this challenge would be playing 2 meaningless OOC games against low majors or non-D1 schools to pad their win totals. Who wants to watch that? Not like either conference was receiving at-large bids prior to this series so arguing it's a failure because only 1 at-large was earned in 3 years between the two conferences seems pretty irrelevant.

 

I know personally the challenge has me tuning in to watch a directional Michigan play a random SunBelt team when I'd otherwise not really care as I actually want to see the MAC win the challenge. I wouldn't imagine I'm the only doing that either. More people tuning into MAC basketballs is good, especially as the new media deal nears.

 

Not to mention the MAC gets two additional national televised games that they wouldn't otherwise get. It would only make sense to scrap the tournament if the MAC had something in place to replace it with better, which they do not.

 

My recommendation to improve it is wait a little later in the year to pick round 2 matchups. Picking them at the start of January when the NET is very volatile isn't the best time to do it.

Edited 18 hours ago by kreed5120

[exit322]

2 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

My recommendation to improve it is wait a little later in the year to pick round 2 matchups. Picking them at the start of January when the NET is very volatile isn't the best time to do it.

 

Since these are all played the same day IIRC, you could even do it a week before.  It makes travel a little hairy, yeah, but the MAC let Sacramento State in for football.  Unenviable travel isn't a problem anymore 😄

[kreed5120]

45 minutes ago, exit322 said:

 

Since these are all played the same day IIRC, you could even do it a week before.  It makes travel a little hairy, yeah, but the MAC let Sacramento State in for football.  Unenviable travel isn't a problem anymore 😄

 

I think the televised games might be played the day before if I recall correctly.

 

Some of the SunBelt Universities in particular aren't the most convenient places to travel. Hiltopper said we chartered a plane to play @ Troy. If we faced someone like Marshall instead we probably just bus. I would think you would need to know about 2 weeks before as if you do need to charter or fly commercial, you probably don't want to be doing that last minute.

Edited 15 hours ago by kreed5120

[exit322]

26 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

 

I think the televised games might be played the day before if I recall correctly.

 

Some of the SunBelt Universities in particular aren't the most convenient places to travel. Hiltopper said we chartered a plane to play @ Troy. If we faced someone like Marshall instead we probably just bus. I would think you would need to know about 2 weeks before as if you do need to charter or fly commercial, you probably don't want to be doing that last minute.

 

That's a fair point.  Two weeks is still better than "first of January."  There's not many Sun Belt teams where we'd just bus (what, Marshall, James Madison, Old Dominion maybe, and App State maybe?)

[Let'sGoZips94]

3 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

I guess I don't really view it as "expensive" as I don't see what it's really costing either conference. The majority of these SunBelt/MAC schools if they weren't playing this challenge would be playing 2 meaningless OOC games against low majors or non-D1 schools to pad their win totals. Who wants to watch that? Not like either conference was receiving at-large bids prior to this series so arguing it's a failure because only 1 at-large was earned in 3 years between the two conferences seems pretty irrelevant.

 

This isn't the argument. 

 

Since the start of the challenge in 2023-24, here are the schedule results for Akron...

 

Q1: 1 (James Madison, and we were a Q3 W for them)

Q2: 1 (Arkansas State, and we were a Q3 W for them)

Q3: 2

Q4: 2

 

How does this boost the resume for top teams in either conference? That's the whole point of this agreement and Q1/Q2 teams are getting Q3 wins at best. Miami OH got Q3 (Marshall) and Q4 (ODU) opportunities this past season; Kent got 2 Q3 opportunities (Troy & Southern Miss).

 

There are better ways to utilize those 2 dates, especially late in the season when NET is more solidified. The current format blows. The Bracket Buster constantly had multiple top 100 RPI teams participating; someone high up needs to figure out how to revive that. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Let'sGoZips94

[kreed5120]

13 minutes ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

 

There are better ways to utilize those 2 dates, especially late in the season when NET is more solidified. The current format blows. The Bracket Buster constantly had multiple top 100 RPI teams participating; someone high up needs to figure out how to revive that. 

 

There is nothing better in place to make it worth eliminating. If there was a multi-conference Bracket Buster lined up then sure eliminate the SunBelt/MAC challenge. Eliminating it without having something better in place though would achieve nothing and be counterproductive.

[Let'sGoZips94]

8 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

 

There is nothing better in place to make it worth eliminating. If there was a multi-conference Bracket Buster lined up then sure eliminate the SunBelt/MAC challenge. Eliminating it without having something better in place though would achieve nothing and be counterproductive.

 

I understand that which makes me believe additional scheduling challenges have occurred across the board.

[exit322]

8 hours ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

The Bracket Buster constantly had multiple top 100 RPI teams participating; someone high up needs to figure out how to revive that. 

 

Fixing NIL so bracket busters aren't just 19-15 power teams would be the first step.