Posts under ‘On The MAC’

My intention was to do some posts while in Cleveland watching the MAC basketball tournament. Doing so requires some degree of sobriety, which my UB Bulls have made completely impossible by turning my first three days here into a balls-to-the-wall par-tay thanks to dipsatching Kent State on Thursday and beating Ball State 64-52 last [...]

Despite what Nate Linhart’s over the top WWE-worthy acting job might make you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLfAPuP2OQw

The 2009 MAC tournament tips off today with four games, featuring teams seeded 5 through 12. We’re going to pick the winners in each of those four games.
Game 1: #7 Central Michigan (7-9, 11-18) vs #10 Eastern Michigan (6-10, 8-23)
Vegas [...]

Or should they be called the weakness ratings? Whatever. The important part is, it’s over. I can finally put this mess behind me. I spent a long time staring at this list trying to make sure it made sense. I eventually had to just admit it doesn’t really matter; all [...]

The Big Picture: Bulls (11-5, 19-10) come from behind to knock off Miami (10-6, 17-12) in overtime 70-67 and claim a share of the MAC East regular season title and the all important MAC Tournament first round bye. Unfortunately and not surprisingly, Ohio (7-9, 14-16) did Buffalo no favors today, running for the [...]

The Big Picture: Bulls (10-5, 18-10) blow what was their best opportunity to all but clinch first place in the MAC East and the coveted MAC tourney bye in heartbreaking 77-71 loss to Kent State. Being that UB has never won at the Kent, the result shouldn’t be that much of a surprise; [...]

Thanks to some typically terrible MAC officiating — Calvin Betts, Mitchell Watt, and Max Boudreau have all fouled out — and some equally terrible Bulls free throw shooting, they’re going to play another five minutes at Kent State.
It’s knotted at 67. My guess is the team that can knock down a [...]

In danger of being run out of the gym during the first half of tonight’s critical MAC scrap at Kent State, the UB Bulls finished the first half on a 7-0 run to whittle a 36-24 Golden Flashes lead down to a mere five points, as the score stands at 36-31 at the half.
With big [...]

Man, I hate this conference this year. Seriously. Sports are allegedly supposed to be fun, but following this tragicomedy has been about as enjoyable as an enema. Because I take this “job” semi-seriously, I try to take in as many games as possible one way or the other. That usually means [...]

Please, someone, put the MAC West out of it’s misery. The six teams that did their level best (or is it worst) to drag the entire league out of Mid-Majordom and into Low-Majordom — Ken Pomeroy ranks the MAC 18th overall, percentage points above the Southland — went at it tonight. While the [...]

The Big Picture: Wow! I still can’t believe this. Buffalo (10-4, 18-9) erases a 10-point deficit in the final three minutes of the game to beat Ohio (7-7, 14-14) 68-66 and remain in the hunt for the MAC East title and number one seed in the MAC. It was an epic [...]

The Big Picture: Bulls waste a great opportunity to cement lead in MAC East by blowing layups, missing freebies, and committing needless fouls on offense down the stretch. The end result was a 62-57 loss to Akron that allowed the Zips to catch the Bulls atop the MAC East with a 9-4 league [...]

A 9-0 burst by Rodney Pierce has helped the Bulls close the gap to five points, 30-25, at the half.
Given that Pierce was en fuego like a bowl of phaal the half came at a bad time for Buffalo. However, the fact is that Buffalo (probably) can’t win beat the Zips if Hot Rod [...]

Another rough shooting night, combined with a complete lack of concentration on offense that has led to 10 turnovers, has Buffalo trailing Akron 30-22 with about 90 seconds left to play in the first half.
Simply put, the Bulls need to win this one.
Let’s see what happens in the second half.

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There is no longer any discernible order, reason, or rhythm to this conference. If the conference was not as bad as it is, these last two weeks would be a lot of fun. Instead, it feels like a funeral procession to Cleveland for 11 burials.
The BracketBuster weekend forced the MAC back into the [...]

I knew things would be bad, but it’s not fun to actually see it come true. Not by a long stretch. As if the MAC’s wretched pre-conference play performance wasn’t enough, we had to go and produce two gems on TV (one not seen by anyone because it was on ESPN U): Buffalo [...]

The Big Picture: Bulls (17-8, 9-3) fall 78-70 to Vermont in Bracket Buster scrap played at Burlington. Buffalo got off to a hot start, taking a 13-point lead in the opening minutes before hitting a stretch so cold that Admiral Peary couldn’t have navigated it. While the late game comeback was nice, [...]

To be honest, I think it was Sunday, when teams from the MAC West won all three intra-division scraps, that things started getting really weird in the MAC nation. That trend continued tonight, but in a vastly different way, as several of the games seemed to have involved time travel, with the squads involved [...]

The Big Picture: Bewildered, befuddled, and undone by Bowling Green’s 2-3 zone defense, a frigid Buffalo Bulls (9-3, 17-7) squad loses it’s second MAC game in a row, falling to the Falcons (8-4, 15-10) 59-48. This being the fifth time in six games that UB was held to less than 60 points, I’d [...]

The world doesn’t make sense anymore! Miami loses at Central, Buffalo loses at Ball State, Akron loses at Northern Illinois and Bowling Green gets walloped at home to Eastern Michigan?!? Geez. Someone’s going to have to win this conference, right?
And am I crazy, or is this the least exciting BracketBusters weekend ever? [...]

Buffalo’s nine-game winning streak ground to a halt in Muncie today, as Ball State held off the Bulls 53-51 in a low-scoring, MAC dogfight. This was just one of those games where the Bulls weren’t able to survive a rare off game from Rodney Pierce, nor overcome missed freebies and missed blockouts down the [...]

The Big Picture: Bulls improve to 9-1 in the MAC (17-5 overall) by putting the defensive clamps on Eastern Michigan (1-9, 3-21) to win 58-49 at Ypsilanti. While beating an Eagles squad that’s been pretty terrible all season wouldn’t normally be that big a deal, but with both Miami (7-3, 14-8) and Ohio [...]

Before I get going, let me say that I love the guys at MAC Report Online (and I’m not just saying that because frequent NFABJ contributor O-Zoner is doing their power rankings). They are the go-to source for MAC football and hoops. It
s that simple.
However, they’ve must’ve had a big bowl [...]

Every now and then during the college hoops season there will be a score that crawls across across the bottom of the telly and grabs your attention the way a preggers MIA rocking Paper Planes in your work cube would. Ever since MAC squads started playing intra-division matches, the only reason MAC scores have [...]

Although the Buffalo News’ Bob DiCesare is askingwhere are the students are, he should be asking where the so-called “sports fans” in Buffalo are as well. With two college hoops teams — Buffalo and Niagara — having superb seasons and harboring legitimate Big Dance dreams, the folks in the Queen City have yet to [...]

Another night and another pair of crushing routs for the MAC West sides in cross-division play.
Miami (6-2, 13-7) dismantled Ball State (5-3, 10-10), the West’s best team, 59-41, in a game that I thought would be a lot closer. Instead, it seems that the Cardinals couldn’t handle Michael Bramos — few teams in the [...]