JT the Brick rips on Miami Redhawks, MAC

[scottditzen]

I just heard JT the Brick belittle the "small schools" that "don't belong in the tournament." He specifically said teams like Niagara and MIAMI OF OHIO should have their own LITTLE SCHOOL TOURNAMENT. This just after Oregon escaped with a 2 point win over Miami. Incredible how some people view the MAC.

[timmyboy]

I just heard JT the Brick belittle the "small schools" that "don't belong in the tournament." He specifically said teams like Niagara and MIAMI OF OHIO should have their own LITTLE SCHOOL TOURNAMENT. This just after Oregon escaped with a 2 point win over Miami. Incredible how some people view the MAC.

someone needs to tell this guy to sit on a stick an spin...... does he not know that the best team in the MAC wasent even invited to the ncaa or nit tourney?

[zip81]

JT is so knee jerk...or perhaps just a jerk.FOX Sports is a dying network.Their coverage is no where near ESPN Radio.WARF 1350 dumped themWKNR just dumped themCan't even hear it in NE Ohio.

[zipsbandman]

Well we had it coming. If you neglect basketball as long as our brilliant conference leadership has, it will come back to bite you. The MAC was horrible this year. Maybe the dude has a point. As long as we are in the MAC, that's all we will amount to.......a joke.

[zip81]

I hate to admit it, but you have a point.

[Zipgrad1990]

Niagra lost by 40 to #1 seed Kansas and Miami of Ohio lost by only 2 to #3 seed Oregon, I would hardly lump Miami in with Niagra. And I think both Akron and Can't were better than Miami, possibly Toledo was better than Miami too. Okay maybe not Toledo after their sorry performance in the NIT.A guy I work with from Ohio University said they should only have 30 or so teams in the NCAA because no small schools will ever win it. I told him that may be true, but if you do that then the major schools get all the money and exposure. Besides I enjoy watching the "little guys" win even if only for a round or two.Maybe they should have a small school tournament for teams like Akron that should have been in - Oh wait that is what the NIT is for I thought!

[Damon]

I actually think JT's a cool dude. I love that he dedicates his thursday night show to our armed forces. I also love the fact that he created myspace monday to get publicity for independant recording artist by playing a clip of their music. Hey, because of his show our myspace page made the Detroit papers. He's right about the small schools having their own tournament. Malone plays in division III which has it's own tournament. I think they should have a Division I tournament and for the same small schools they should have a division Ia tournament.Lets be real, Akron the other MAC would never compete against the North Carolina's or Kansas'. Oregan is o.k.. I honest think they're over rated, but that's JMHO.

[GP1]

All of you who are in favor of having the big schools play each other only are 100% correct. Being D-1A for mid-majors has become pointless. Break out the Big Ten, Big East, ACC, SEC, PAC 10 and Big 12 and let them have their own division in all sports and don't let them play anyone outside of their own group. Akron isn't the first mid-major to get screwed this way and it is very likely that many more mid-majors will get screwed even worse in the future as it will get worse and not better.

[Dave in Green]

If you're really trying to get the best 64 teams in the country together at the end of the regular season, then it makes no sense to automatically invite tournament winners from small conferences with no team near the top 64 in any of the ratings systems.The MAC would do better under a really fair and realistic system of selecting the top 64 teams in the country through a combination of human and computer polls than some of the lesser conferences.In any case, the NCAA championship tournament should not be about giving every conference a fair chance, but about giving every team a fair chance. If a conference winner is rated 100 in all the polls, it doesn't belong in a tournament for the top 64 teams.No system is perfect, and there would be plenty of complaining about the interpretation of the polls that produced the 64-team field. So you'd just replace the weak conference tournament champion complaints with poll complaints.One way to overcome that is for the NCAA to simply add one more game to their championship tournament and double the field to 128 teams. This would certainly allow more than one MAC team plus at least one team from almost every mid-major conference to make it into the big dance.Any conference that didn't have one of the top 128 teams in the rankings certainly would not deserve to place a team in the NCAAs based on winning a conference championship.With a quality coach like Keith Dambrot and the program he's building at Akron, the Zips would no doubt be in the NCAA championship tournament almost every year under a system that selected the top 128 teams in the country regardless of conference affiliation or conference tournament results.Of course, the big, powerful universities wouldn't like this, as it would only give them one more game where they might be upset. So the big schools would lobby the NCAA against it.It's up to the NCAA to be smart enough to realize that having students, alumni and fans of 128 schools rather than 64 focused on the national championship tournament makes twice as much sense for college basketball.

[johnnyzip84]

He's right about the small schools having their own tournament. Malone plays in division III which has it's own tournament. I think they should have a Division I tournament and for the same small schools they should have a division Ia tournament.

Malone is not even an NCAA institution. They are in the NAIA along with Walsh. Since they give some scholoarship money nased on athletics, they're probably closer to an NCAA D-2 school than NCAA D-3.A HUGE part of the NCAA tourney charm (although I'm sticking to my boycott this year so far!) is the "David vs. Goliath" scripts oftne seen in the early round games. If you take that away, I think the popularity goes way down.

[UA Fan]

If you're really trying to get the best 64 teams in the country together at the end of the regular season, then it makes no sense to automatically invite tournament winners from small conferences with no team near the top 64 in any of the ratings systems.The MAC would do better under a really fair and realistic system of selecting the top 64 teams in the country through a combination of human and computer polls than some of the lesser conferences.In any case, the NCAA championship tournament should not be about giving every conference a fair chance, but about giving every team a fair chance.  If a conference winner is rated 100 in all the polls, it doesn't belong in a tournament for the top 64 teams.No system is perfect, and there would be plenty of complaining about the interpretation of the polls that produced the 64-team field.  So you'd just replace the weak conference tournament champion complaints with poll complaints.One way to overcome that is for the NCAA to simply add one more game to their championship tournament and double the field to 128 teams.  This would certainly allow more than one MAC team plus at least one team from almost every mid-major conference to make it into the big dance.Any conference that didn't have one of the top 128 teams in the rankings certainly would not deserve to place a team in the NCAAs based on winning a conference championship.With a quality coach like Keith Dambrot and the program he's building at Akron, the Zips would no doubt be in the NCAA championship tournament almost every year under a system that selected the top 128 teams in the country regardless of conference affiliation or conference tournament results.Of course, the big, powerful universities wouldn't like this, as it would only give them one more game where they might be upset.  So the big schools would lobby the NCAA against it.It's up to the NCAA to be smart enough to realize that having students, alumni and fans of 128 schools rather than 64 focused on the national championship tournament makes twice as much sense for college basketball.

That would be nice but I don't think the NCAA would add another round to the big dance...it would make the brackets pretty unwieldy. Either the NIT should expand to 64 teams or another tournament should be created, the Mid-Major Invitational. It could be either strictly non-BCS or open to all. In fact it could compete directly with the NIT for the best teams it could get. There would be no automatic bids. Akron and the MAC should start pushing for some kind of change like this to the status quo. Hell, we could host the finals at Cleveland. The NCAA would probably try to squash it so there would have to be a legal/antitrust battle but I think enough "small schools" would put up some money, after all, notice has been served to all the "small conferences" that even 26 wins is not enough to avoid being snubbed for post-season play.

[Big Zip]

I"m a lot more for the best 64 teams in the country being in the tournament instead of splitting them out or the current format. I'm also in favor of lessening the human factor by going to a system like the BCS. As much as people don't like the BCS -- what they really don't like is no tournament. A tournament makes things better.As for those who don't think a mid major can make it and shouldn't be there - George Mason's drive to the final four last year proves that wrong. It was really cool to see a school like that make the run.One thing that bothered me this year about the tournament was the inconsistency. Obviously, the slighting of Akron was number -- especially if Laing was telling the truth when he said they were penciled in as a 10 if they would have won -- that means they went from a 10 to out of the tournament because of a freak bank shot. I heard the leader of the NCAA selection committee say OSU was the not given the number 1 seed because they lost to UNC and Florida during the season. At which point the host asked aren't they a different team now and the leader said we used the head to head. Later in the interview he justified other teams making the tournament (Arkansas) because of how they played down the stretch. Well what is it how they played during the season or down the stretch.

[Damon]

He's right about the small schools having their own tournament. Malone plays in division III which has it's own tournament. I think they should have a Division I tournament and for the same small schools they should have a division Ia tournament.

Malone is not even an NCAA institution. They are in the NAIA along with Walsh. Since they give some scholoarship money nased on athletics, they're probably closer to an NCAA D-2 school than NCAA D-3.A HUGE part of the NCAA tourney charm (although I'm sticking to my boycott this year so far!) is the "David vs. Goliath" scripts oftne seen in the early round games. If you take that away, I think the popularity goes way down.

Malone may be in the NAIA but Akron is to Ohio State as Malone is to Akron. These guys don't get the greatest athletes and on top of that they don't play the best competition on a week to week basis. Then in the end, fans feel like their teams got robbed because they won X amount of games. What do people expect? If you play in a division that is inferior to big division I schools and for the most part, they all fail to win a high percentage of their out of league play then of course someone's going to get robbed if they lose their conference title game....

[Big Zip]

Can someone please block Damon -- he came to this board flaming the University, its fans and athletes like nobody on this board does. After the thread about his song died I thought he'd go away, but he's still here. I've got no clue why someone with such hatred and venom for the University is still posting here.

[zippyrifle32]

He's right about the small schools having their own tournament. Malone plays in division III which has it's own tournament. I think they should have a Division I tournament and for the same small schools they should have a division Ia tournament.

Malone is not even an NCAA institution. They are in the NAIA along with Walsh. Since they give some scholoarship money nased on athletics, they're probably closer to an NCAA D-2 school than NCAA D-3.A HUGE part of the NCAA tourney charm (although I'm sticking to my boycott this year so far!) is the "David vs. Goliath" scripts oftne seen in the early round games. If you take that away, I think the popularity goes way down.

Malone may be in the NAIA but Akron is to Ohio State as Malone is to Akron. These guys don't get the greatest athletes and on top of that they don't play the best competition on a week to week basis. Then in the end, fans feel like their teams got robbed because they won X amount of games. What do people expect? If you play in a division that is inferior to big division I schools and for the most part, they all fail to win a high percentage of their out of league play then of course someone's going to get robbed if they lose their conference title game....

hey dumbass, we're both in the same division. we're just not as good as them in SOME sports. there is more to life than just football and basketball. anyways, you admit that we were robbed which means that you believe that we belong in at least the nit possibly the ncaa.

[Damon]

Believe me I am...just sit back and watch me

I am....not much to see

JT said it all....no need for me to say more. It's Akron's fault that they play in a sorry conference. It's Akron's fault that they didn't recruit the top talent in the land. Akron and the other tiny schools should have there own tournament. The NCAA saved some of us the grief of having to watch more small schools. It's not like a small school like Akron is ever going to win a NCAA or NIT tournament. They saved the school embarrassment

[Big Zip]

Butler won the preseason NIT. You are incorrect -- Damon help me understand why you are here. The moniker of the page states that this is the unofficial web home for Akron Zips fans. YOu are obviosly not - you are however a winer to say the least. Please just go away.

[skip-zip]

Here are a few things that I would propose to the NCAA to make the system more fair.First of all, I want to continue to see some of these smaller teams in the tournament. It makes the opening rounds so much more fun. But I'd also like to see us get closer to having the "real" top-64 teams.....so.....1) I'd make more teams from the REALLY weak conferences play in a play-in game on Tuesday night. This way, we still give them a chance to get in, but we've also saved a few more spots for the teams that are really deserving of an at-large bid as one of the best 64 teams in the country. 2) Come up with a MATHEMATICAL selection criteria. This way, we can eliminate the subjectivity of the selection process.I would be hard to convince that we need to split up Division I in basketball. To me, the only thing this would accomplish is that the big schools would get even more and more of the money, and the mid-majors would forever remain "smaller schools". I want Akron (however remote this might seem at times) to have a chance to someday grow into a major program. Having the chance to someday get there is part of what makes it exciting to support a mid-major school.

[zippyrifle32]

i'd like to wipe the phrase "smaller teams" and use something like "less well known" cause if we really were "smaller" then we'd be dII not dI.

[GJGood]

Dividing Division 1 into segments in basketball would only hurt the "smaller" schools, not help them. How much national attention do you think a tournament consisting only of mid-majors and low majors would get? Probably about as much as the D-2 tournament does now. With lack of exposure comes lack of interest and eventually loss of a large portion of the fan base. This would only hurt the economic interests of a school like Akron.Plus, look at how much attention the so-called mid-major schools can get by playing in the tournament in its current format. A lot of people during the course of this year's NCAA tournament have been talking about schools like VCU, Southern Illinois, and Butler. There is absolutely no reason that a MAC school cannot be on par with the likes of one of those schools or have a great run like George Mason or build a nationally recognized program like that at Gonzaga.Isn't parity more commonplace now than it was a decade or two ago? Whose to say that trend won't continue and more schools will be seen as major threats in the future? It won't happen, though, if we tinker to much with the system in a divisive way.

[GJGood]

Lets be real, Akron the other MAC would never compete against the North Carolina's or Kansas'. Oregan is o.k.. I honest think they're over rated, but that's JMHO.

Didn't Akron beat Oral Roberts at Oral Roberts this year just a week or two after Oral Roberts beat Kansas in Lawrence?Didn't Pittsburgh back out of coming to play Akron this year and opt for Buffalo instead? Why would they do this if they didn't think there was a danger there? If Akron was an easy win for them than it certainly would have increased their schedule strength and RPI much more than a win over Buffalo.The top teams in conferences like the MAC, WCC, and Horizon League are much closer to being on equal footing with some of the better teams in the "power" conferences than many want to believe. They certainly are much closer to the top of D-1 than to anybody that exists in D-2.

[UA Fan]

Dividing Division 1 into segments in basketball would only hurt the "smaller" schools, not help them. How much national attention do you think a tournament consisting only of mid-majors and low majors would get? Probably about as much as the D-2 tournament does now. With lack of exposure comes lack of interest and eventually loss of a large portion of the fan base. This would only hurt the economic interests of a school like Akron.Plus, look at how much attention the so-called mid-major schools can get by playing in the tournament in its current format. A lot of people during the course of this year's NCAA tournament have been talking about schools like VCU, Southern Illinois, and Butler. There is absolutely no reason that a MAC school cannot be on par with the likes of one of those schools or have a great run like George Mason or build a nationally recognized program like that at Gonzaga.Isn't parity more commonplace now than it was a decade or two ago? Whose to say that trend won't continue and more schools will be seen as major threats in the future? It won't happen, though, if we tinker to much with the system in a divisive way.

So why even have a post-season NIT? None of those schools won their conference tournaments so why should they still be playing? But if there's going to be a 2nd tourney for the "2nd tier" of schools, selected by a committee with their own agenda, why not a 3rd tourney or any number of them (like we have any number of bowl games in football) and let them invite who they want and let the teams accept the invitation they like best. The big dance will always be the main event but at least the fans and players of the other schools would get to participate in the post season as a reward for having a good season, it doesn't just have to be about national exposure. And if the lesser BCS schools would humble themselves to play in the mid-major tourney, I wouldn't have a problem with that either.

[GJGood]

I do think the NIT should feature more schools from outside the "power" conferences than it does. I hate seeing teams that are something like 17-15 and finished 8th in their league playing in the postseason over a team that has single digit losses but finished second or third. I just don't think that the "smaller" conferences should be eliminated from the big show of the NCAA. A couple of NCAA wins can help a conference greatly. Look at the Missouri Valley and even the Colonial this year.A side note...although it may have hurt Akron this year (even though it shouldn't have) I do like the auto bid rule for the regular season conference champs to the NIT. Teams should be rewarded for being the best team's in their league all season long and not have it totally ruined by one game. I know as Akron fans we all can associate with that feeling! I definitely don't think the NIT should have shrunk from 40 to 32 teams though, if anything with the auto bids it should have gone up to about 48 teams.