Posts Tagged ‘MAC’

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 [...]

With the release of the 2009-10 University of Buffalo basketball schedule, one of the best kept secrets in college basketball is no longer a secret. Judging by the lack of non-league home games — the Bulls have a mere four on their 28-game schedule, one of which is a visit to Alumni Arena [...]

Not Conference USA, the MAC, Mountain West Conference, Sun Belt, or WAC if you ask me. Let’s rein in Craig Thompson and Orrin Hatch, and stop the begging and whining.
There’s no need to. Not only is it undignified and unseemly, but the fact is that we — those of us [...]

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 (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, [...]

Make it seven wins in a row.
Tonight’s 56-55 victory over Central Michigan at Alumni Arena was win number two that came entirely because of the way the Bulls defended for 40 minutes. My internet connection decided to shut down at halftime and I wasn’t able to get it sorted until the game had [...]

The Big Picture: Statement made. UB barely breaks a sweat in beating an ineffective Kent State squad 64-53 to go 3-1 in the MAC (11-5 overall) and move into a three-way tie for first in the MAC East with Miami and Ohio. Tonight’s win should provide the Bulls with plenty of confidence [...]

Well, sort of.
The Bulls, in what can be called a “statement game” — and even a must-win if coach ‘Spoon’s squad is serious about contending for the MAC title this season — in the MAC are leading Kent State 28-23 at the half, which is good. What isn’t good is that Buffalo’s lead should [...]

Based on today’s losses, the MAC could find itself sitting 16th or 17th one the rankings are updated. That isn’t the stuff multiple Big Dance bids are made of.

In fact, at this point in the season, we can look at the field of 65, and, with almost absolute certainty, say that only the MAC tournament champion will be repping the conference in that field.

It’s not that every team is scheduling like Charlie Coles and, predictably, losing to teams they should lose to. MAC teams are losing games they can and should probably win.

Ever since nailing the Buffalo +14.5 pick in the MAC football championship game, we’ve been staying away from testing our winning streak by getting back in the action on Mid-Major college hoops. That’s changing today because Ohio (4-5), one of the most detested teams around these parts, are six points ‘dogs on the [...]

The Big Picture: A hot-shooting Rodney Pierce —28 points on 10-of-19 shooting — and a determined and dogged effort by the undersized Buffalo frontline was almost enough to propel the Bulls past the 2nd-ranked Connecticut Huskies and notch the biggest upset victory in Bulls history. Instead, with a chance to tie the game [...]

erhaps. Since former Toledo assistant coach James Stafford says “Villegas He still came into the gym and practised his shot. He just couldn’t make shots.”, I’m going to cut Sammy some slack until there is a plea or trial.

But still. Coming on the heels of a major FBI investigation into Toledo’s football squad shaving points, the Villegas thing is just more evidence that the Toledo athletics program is a major fucking embarrassment. The MAC should strip both Toledo basketball and football of scholarships for a lack of institutional control and ban each team from post-season play for at least one year.

Toledo ain’t Las Vegas or Reno. There’s no excuse for this kind of shit to be going at a MAC school.

UNLV spanks Kent State 71-58
Nothing good, that’s certain.
The main problems with the MAC that leave our squads unprepared for Big Dance play are the abyss in quality that are the bottom four or so teams in the league and the lack of atmosphere at gyms throughout the league, no matter where a team [...]

Going into another extended off-season for Buffalo Bulls hoops there seem to be two distinct and divergent takes on the direction of the program. There are those like the Buffalo News’ Bob DiCesare, who somehow think that the mere act of not getting humiliated when playing away from Alumni is a sign of progress [...]

Miami might just be the toughest team to beat in the MAC tourney no matter the season. All the Redhawks did tonight was pound Ohio on both ends of the floor during the final four or so minutes of their MAC quarterfinal dogfight tonight to end the Bobcats season, winning 74-61.

With leading scorer Tim [...]

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.

After checking the score on numerous websites, ESPN, and calling a fellow Buffalo alum, it seems that it’s true: the UB Bulls (10-18, 3-12) did run Bowling Green (13-15, 7-8) right the fuck out of Alumni Arena on Tuesday, to the tune of a 96-50 drubbing. Don”t know how this happened and I still can’t really explain it but that’s not going to stop me from giving it a bit of a shot.

Let’s begin with the obvious; this is a nice win for Reggie Witherspoon and his squad. It should give the Bulls some momentum heading into a challenging regular season-ending scrap at Ohio. And I’m glad they got the win but…

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.

I’m going to say this from the jump: I don’t like betting on tonight’s Kent State-Miami game one bit. The spread on Bet US has the Golden Flashes spotting the Redhawks 6.5 points while Bodog has them giving up 7 points while Bet Vega’s live odds show the opening line was 5.5 points, which [...]

Kent State can kiss it’s spot in the Top 25 and spot on the Big Dance bubble good-bye after today’s inexplicable 89-83 loss at Bowling Green (13-14, 7-7). Somehow, a week after their biggest win of the season, the 65-57 Bracket Buster win at St.Mary’s, which came because of a patented Golden Flashes effort on D, Kent State played little-to-no defense against a Falcons side that shot a blistering 50% from the field.

Games like this expose the lack of depth in the MAC right now. There are three teams — WMU, Akron (19-7, 9-4),and Kent State (22-5, 11-2) — that are much better than everyone else in the league, followed by two teams — Ohio (17-9, 8-5) and Miami (13-12, 7-6) — that can win on any given night. The rest of the teams in the MAC, including EMU, gritty Ball State (5-19, 4-8), and somewhat surprising Bowling Green (11-14, 6-7), have fatal flaws that can see them end up on the wrong side of a rout when facing the best five or so sides in the league.

And that’s as unlikely to change in a few weeks time as is Mike Huckabee to officiate Larry Craig’s gay nuptials.

After starting MAC play 0-8 and not having won a road game since dinosaurs roamed the earth, UB (7-14, 1-8) got it going tonight in DeKalb, leading by double digits most of the game, as they cruised to a 89-81 win over the Northern Illinois Huskies (5-16, 2-7).

At first, I wasn’t going to make too much about Buffalo’s tonight because NIU is a truly terrible team but then I decided that, hell yeah, this is a huge win for coach ‘Spoon’s side. So pardon me while I get bit carried away.

Last week’s upset win by North Texas over South Alabama continued our recent slide in Pick of The Day. Going way back to our Mid-Major roots didn’t help but going back to our actual roots just might.
My UB Bulls, led by Reggie Witherspoon, a gentleman who coached me in high school, are suffering through [...]

Like sitting next to screaming, crying kids on a 20-hour flight, the end to the Bulls’ losing streak is nowhere in sight. Saturday’s disaster at Toledo (6-12, 3-3), a 76-63 loss in a game that was there for Buffalo (6-12, 0-6) to win it, makes it pretty clear that the Coach ‘Spoon’s side is the worst in the MAC.