Posts Tagged ‘Akron’

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 [...]

Fear the Roo my ass!

Sunday’s rematch of the 2009 MAC tournament final represents the Buffalo Bulls first chance to gain a measure of redemption for their 65-53 loss to the Zips in Clevo. Put simply, this is THE statement game for Coach ‘Spoon’s squad in January.
Rodney Pierce and Co. are 5-1 in [...]

As with the start of any college hoops season, there is a clear favorite to win the MAC — Akron in this case — but there are also plenty of reasons to think that the Zips won’t repeat as MAC champs. The most important of which may be the fact that the MAC has [...]

After having a few days to reflect on my UB Bulls losing to a hot-shooting Akron side in the MAC championship game Saturday night, I’ve finally realized why this was, as I said in text to a buddy from Buffalo after the game, not that “bad a loss” and “maybe not in the top ten.”
See, [...]

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:
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 [...]

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; [...]

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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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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

In fact, I quit watching this game because the refereeing was so blatantly one-sided, and so disruptive, as to destroy any semblance of flow and rhythm this game might have otherwise had, that is was unwatchable.

Sadly, this is the case more often than not during the non-league part of the season. When a mid-major visits a BCS league squad, the refs usually are culled from the cadre of officials who work games in said BCS conference. Believe me, that was not a MAC, Ohio Valley, Big Ten, Atlantic 10, or Horizon League crew working the Akron-Pitt game. It was a straight-up Big East crew that probably does about 12 Pitt games a season. And it showed

The Golden Flashes missed 3-of-4 freebies during the final minute and a half of the game giving Keith Mandelbrot’s Akron squad a chance to get back in it if they made shots, which they somehow did despite the fact that they spent the previous 38 minutes misfiring from all angles and all places. Since Kent State was up by so much, merely missing free throws wouldn’t be enough to allow Akron back into the game. In order for that to happen, Kent State would need to make other mistakes like flinging inbounds passes out of play or directly into the hands of a waiting Akron player. All of which they did.

And a Kent State rout in a blasé game that was a letdown became a final second nail-biter.

I don’t what is about being ESPN2 but something about appearing on the deuce seems to bring out the worst in MAC teams. Tonight’s 50-39 win by Kent State (24-6, 11-4) over Miami (14-14, 8-7), which notched us another win in Pick of The Day by the way, might’ve been the least watchable college hoops game televised on any channel this season. At one point during the second half, the two teams had combined for 29 turnovers and only 20 buckets. The final tally for the Golden Flashes was 19 TOs to 17 baskets while it was 15 TOs to 16 baskets for the Redhawks, a total of 34 turnovers to 33 baskets.

It’s nice to see the Bulls (9-17) get a win and to have done it in a way the entertained another meager crowd at Alumni Arena but at the end of the day, beating a bad Penguins squad that’s 2-10 in it’s last 12 games and hasn’t won on the road since November just doesn’t mean that much. A win over an opponent like Youngstown State is not the kind of galvanizing and confidence-building win that the Bulls need to get going in the MAC. Had they beat Kent State or Miami at Alumni recently that would be the type of victory that UB could build on come the MAC tourney.

The first weekend of 2008 saw a full slate of MAC games, with all 12 teams playing league games. Like usual, per the MAC, there a couple of surprises that showed just how tough and wide open the race for the MAC East is going to be while Toledo and Central Michigan, the faves [...]