Posts under ‘On The MAC’

The MAC tournament tips off in… oh, a few hours. So let’s run this down one more time in 2010, shall we? I was looking forward to a couple good games to decide the East and West… of course, that didn’t happen. Central Michigan failed slightly less than Eastern Michigan and Kent [...]

Unlike the Postal Service, snow and ice can stop the Power Rankings. No matter, we’re back at it this week. Since we last talked, Kent ran their winning streak to 8 before Buffalo stopped them, Akron regained a share of the East lead, and Ball State joined Central Michigan atop the West. [...]

Last week I suggested interdivisional play would make the difference in the regular season championship. Play since then has borne that out. Kent State has established itself as a clear #1 while watching competitors stumble. #1 and #12 are established. 2-11, however, are shifting almost daily.

1. Kent State (15-7, 6-2) (1): [...]

Eastern Michigan scored another win for the formerly downtrodden MAC West tonight, upsetting Akron 62-59 at James Rhodes Arena in Akron. Not exactly sure how the Eagles, last seen getting run out of Miami’s Millet Hall in a nationally televised game Saturday, pulled this one out, but judging from the box score, the Zips [...]

The Big Picture: Defensively-challenged University of Bulls allow very average Western Michigan side that was coming off a two-game losing streak to shoot 60% from the field on their way to a 85-70 rout of UB. The loss, Buffalo’s third in their last four games, has the Bulls back in the middle of [...]

Pound-for-pound, Ricardo Patton’s Northern Illinois Huskies might be the most talented team in the MAC. There’s little doubt that junior guard/wings Darion “Jake” Anderson and Xavier Silas are two of the more explosive players on the offensive side of the court in the MAC. While not among the league’s best soph point Mike [...]

Road teams scored victories in five of the first 13 games of the conference season. Since then? Home teams won 16 of the next 18. As always, home court is sacred in the MAC. With 11 games left, it’s looking entirely possible that 10 games could be enough to secure the [...]

Wow. Just one week and there’s been a complete reshuffling of the Mid-American deck. This is probably the most radical one-week change in the rankings we’ve ever done. Critics might take this as a sign of league-wide mediocrity while optimists could argue it’s depth. I still think we’re going to see [...]

To anyone that had the misfortune of being at Rose Arena tonight for Central Michigan playing host to Ball State. I didn’t see the game, but the final box yields me to conclude that the Chippewas’ 53-38 win set basketball back about 3000 years. The ancient Mayan ballgame had to have more artistry [...]

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man, healthy, wealthy, and wise.”- Benjamin Franklin
But it doesn’t prevent syphilis, does it, smart guy? I really wish I was one of those people that could regularly fall asleep by midnight and wake up ready to take on the day come morning. I’ve been [...]

The Big Picture: Bulls take care of business, leading from buzzer-to-buzzer in 93-65 win over D3 Buffalo State in what we call the Youngman Expressway Derby. The win, UB’s second in a row, improves the Bulls record to 5-3 on the season. With a nine day break for Fall semester finals before [...]

The Week That Was: As the 2009-10 non-league portion of the season winds down for MAC teams, this week will be remembered as the week that MAC sides made it clear that this is a league for welterweights not heavyweights nor cruiserweights nor even middleweights. Several opportunities to notch the type of emphatic, [...]

Not sure what Brent Musgerger’s track record is on this sort of thing, but The Sporting News is reporting that Musberger said Turner Gill is the leading candidate for the Kansas job during yesterday’s Big 12 football championship game.
Although some guy in Lawrence isn’t paying much attention to this and the UB Fan community is [...]

With a 5-2 record and wins against a pretty good UAB team, a decent Samford side, and a Morehead State team that has to be considered a favorite in the Ohio Valley, I thought Kent State had as good a chance of beating Xavier in Cincinnati tonight as does the United States of advancing to [...]

The Big Picture: Buffalo overcomes start of game siesta and countless ineffectual stretches on offense to overcome what seems to be a decent Army

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Ever wonder MAC refs suck huge, fat elephant balls? The Buffalo News Bob DiCesare has the answer:
Mid-American Conference officials worked the game, which explains a lot. The league’s pay is low scale and there’s no reimbursement for expenses incurred. Therefore, the MAC gets officials who can’t get many games elsewhere. The officiating in the [...]

A few college hoops seasons ago, we started doing almost weekly power rankings for MAC basketball. As pointless as it may seem to be doing power rankings for a conference that’s currently 17th-best*, we had fun with it, and it was a great way to understand the state of MAC hoops on a weekly [...]

The University of Buffalo’s 2009 football season officially ended today with a 9-6 win over Kent State that really encapsulated this Bulls season. As has been the Bulls custom the past two seasons, today’s win came in a game decided by a touchdown or less; the eighth such game Buffalo played this season (they [...]

The Big Picture: Bulls can claim mantle as the best team in Mobtown, after surviving overtime scrap with an experienced Towson to emerge victorious 78-69. Coach ‘Spoon’s squad stands at 2-1 and seems to be officially over both woulda, shoulda, coulda, opening loss to Vermont and slopfest of a win at Navy. [...]

The Big Picture: Bulls survive a knife fight of a basketball with Navy, winning 63-53 at Alumni Hall in Annapolis. Coach ‘Spoon’s squad overcame a myriad of maladies, including turnovers on five consecutive possessions in the first half (UB had 22 of them… 22!), missed free throws (UB finished 16-of-25), and three-point shooting [...]

Four MAC teams took the floor on Wednesday night and three finished the night with wins. For a league — currently rated 24th by Ken Pomeroy — that needs to start racking up OOC dubbyas, this is, well, only kind of good news.
Of Wednesday’s wins, only one, Western Michigan defending their turf in a [...]

The Big Picture: Is it winter already? Bulls start the 2009-10 season with a shooting performance so frigid that it made John Starks’ 2-for-18 night in game seven of the 1994 NBA Finals seem, ummm, not so bad. Given that UB shot only 44% in their exhibition win over Daemen, it shouldn’t [...]

While there a few scores on the first Friday of the college hoops season — Rider thumping 19th-ranked Mississippi State, San Diego knocking off Stanford, the Idaho Vandals pillaging Utah — the result that almost shocked me enough to put down my beer, turn the LA Galaxy vs Houston Dynamo clash for the MLS [...]

The big question about the MAC West this season is whether anyone other than those with a close — i.e. friends and family — relationship to coaches and players in the league should really care what happens. And, to be honest, I don’t know that anybody else should. The six sides in [...]

It’s really simple: Buffalo needs to run the table to finish the season with a 7-5 record, which should be enough to get them a second straight invite to the International Bowl in Toronto. With Temple running away with the MAC East, and Central Michigan doing the same in the MAC West, [...]