nice win by the Buffalo basketball team tonight!

Buffalo 64, Temple 62 in Philadelphia!

on the other hand, Ball State is losing the "Thompson Bowl" with #23 Georgetown, 62-44 with 4:11 left in the game.

Maybe people will start to listen to me when I say Temple in basketball isn't anything anymore. I don't know what it's going to take. If they lost at home to a bad Buffalo team, that's very telling. Even the Owls fans here said .500 would be an accomplishment for them.

It turns out Pepe Pearson took the torch with him and didn't hand it off when he left...

Good to see UB owning somebody in football & hoops this season

I was going to ask if this was a down year for Temple hoops but it sounds like it is...

OZoner Wrote:I don't know what it's going to take. If they lost at home to a bad Buffalo team, that's very telling.

Just curious- why do you think Buffalo is a bad team?

temple basketball is no where near it used to be but next year temple gets three impact freshman. Temple is also missing two starters to academics(Marshall is out for the year, Tyndale comes back after 6 games). Dunphy will have to program turned around after two recruiting classes. He has one under his belt.

Here are the signees for next year:
Martavis Kee- 6-3 PG offers from TU, Clemson, Marquette, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Miami FL, South Carolina

Michael Eric 6-10 PF offers from TU, GW, St.Joe's, (only been playing basketball for 2 years=huge upside)

Lavoy Allen 6-9 PF offers from TU, Lasalle, Providence, Rutgers, St. Joe's, Villanova, Virginia

Temple will be back to the top of the A-10 very soon

A-10 is very close to the MAC. Beating Temple and other A-10 middle tier teams is a positive sign. I think Xavier is the best they got right now. Temple is an unkown.....A-10 teams are so up and down OOC.....one night they are beating a BE heavyweight, then the next MEAC bottom feeders cleans their clocks. Dayton is a team that can beat anyone and lose to anyone in the same week. I think Rhode Island is the same way.

klingon288 Wrote:

OZoner Wrote:I don't know what it's going to take. If they lost at home to a bad Buffalo team, that's very telling.

Just curious- why do you think Buffalo is a bad team?

No depth, no consistency. Idbihi can go for 30 or completely fail to hit a rim for a half. Parnell still needs to prove he can hang in the MAC. Lots of questions at the guard positions. The Canisius win was good, but Evansville was embarrassing. And they seemed to have their hands full with Cleveland State. Can Parnell be a reliable scorer? Can Feditov help Yassin down low? Gamble needs to have a good year.

Your defense looks like it can be exploited most especially.

A-10 is very close to the MAC.


How many times do we have to go through this? Has the MAC ever had 5 teams in the NCAA's or 2 teams in the elite eight in the same year. The MAC has never been very close to the A-10 in Basketball.

This isn't the Chaney-Calipari A-10 any more. You saw the amount of respect the conference has lost just by how low George Washington was seeded the year they lost a couple games.

At the top, the A-10 is still better than the MAC just like C-USA. But all the way through, I am not sure there is much difference.

OZoner Wrote:

klingon288 Wrote:

OZoner Wrote:I don't know what it's going to take. If they lost at home to a bad Buffalo team, that's very telling.

Just curious- why do you think Buffalo is a bad team?

No depth, no consistency. Idbihi can go for 30 or completely fail to hit a rim for a half. Parnell still needs to prove he can hang in the MAC. Lots of questions at the guard positions. The Canisius win was good, but Evansville was embarrassing. And they seemed to have their hands full with Cleveland State. Can Parnell be a reliable scorer? Can Feditov help Yassin down low? Gamble needs to have a good year.

Your defense looks like it can be exploited most especially.

They are 5-2 with only one home game played. Wins over Miami (Fla) and Temple. This is a middle of the road MAC team. Could be very good by the end of the year. While mentioning question marks, you conveniently overlook the team's strengths year to date- very good free throw shooting team; knows how to win close games; new PG Moore has been shooting the lighs out; Robinson averaging a couple steals per game.

FYI- Idbihi had a doube-double against Temple- in the first half. Parnell has had a couple 20+ point games this year.

I've seen bad Buffalo teams- this ain't one of them.

MAC is 4-0 vs the A-10 this year in basketball, but were not close.... right.

Ohio plays @ St Bonaventure, Neutral court vs St Joseph's, home vs Rhode Island. Ohio should be favored atleast 2 of those three.

That a projected 6-1 or 7-0 for the MAC. I think MAC has a chance to win the season series with the A-10.

Here's how the MAC did last year against the A-10:

ATLANIC 10 5-2 (H3-1 A2-1)
Mon Nov 21 42 Dayton at MIAMI 58
Wed Nov 30 61 Duquesne at AKRON 79
Wed Dec 7 36 CENTRAL MICHIGAN at Dayton 61
Sat Dec 10 71 OHIO UNIV at Rhode Island 63
Sun Dec 11 75 Xavier at MIAMI 65
Sat Dec 17 68 St Bonaventure at TOLEDO 83
Tue Mar 14 80 AKRON at Temple 73 ot

Yep, we're light years behind the (once powerful) A-10.

The A10 used to be the little Major conference that could. Now they're a good Mid-Major with the occasional great team (St. Josephs 4 years ago). CUSA is better, and the MVC is better, and the MAC is about even in hoops. None of the hoops programs are consisently good anymore and lost the season series with the MAC last year, and 90% likely they will lose it again this year.

And A10 fans....quit with the NY Yankees argument. Ohh we did this and that and had 5 teams, blah blah. No one is saying that historically the A10 isn't better. I think we all freely admit that the A10 was better historically. But that has NO bearing on what we're discussing right now. The MAC RIGHT NOW is a better conference than the A10. Look at the wins and Losses the past 2 years.

Also, about Buffalo. UB isn't necessarily a bad team as much as they are young and inexperienced. Anyone who has watched them will tell you they are very talented. The problem is rookie mental mistakes. As the season goes on this team will get better. I would be very supprised if they finished at the bottom of the MAC. I'd expect them to go about .500 in conference. It' hard to say 5-2 team is bad.

OZoner Wrote:

klingon288 Wrote:

OZoner Wrote:I don't know what it's going to take. If they lost at home to a bad Buffalo team, that's very telling.

Just curious- why do you think Buffalo is a bad team?

No depth, no consistency. Idbihi can go for 30 or completely fail to hit a rim for a half. Parnell still needs to prove he can hang in the MAC. Lots of questions at the guard positions. The Canisius win was good, but Evansville was embarrassing. And they seemed to have their hands full with Cleveland State. Can Parnell be a reliable scorer? Can Feditov help Yassin down low? Gamble needs to have a good year.

Your defense looks like it can be exploited most especially.

Let's see- Temple sucks because it lost to a bad Buffalo team. Buffalo sucks because they had their hands full with Cleveland State.

Your thought process seems flawed- must be those green-tinted glasses.

I've been saying Temple sucks since last year. The loss to Buffalo doesn't have anything to do with it.

Kent's loss to Cleveland State, though, suggests I may be underestimating the Vikings. We shall see.

Why I think Buffalo will struggle this year:

- 27.6% three-point shooting so far (39% overall).
- 27% turnover rate, too high for a team that lacks the ability to score quickly.
- Idbihi's inconsistency.
- Ability to tighten up on D when they need to.

But there are things I do like from the Bulls:

- Ball movement. So far, Buffalo is getting a remarkable 66.8% of its baskets off assists.
- Foul shooting. Buffalo is 72.9% from the line.
- Offensive rebounding. Averaging 11.5 a game, which is very strong.

Hey let's face it, UB has helped to salvage some MAC pride so far in the early season ooc schedule. At 5-2 they are obviously a pretty decent team...not great but decent. If they were 2-5 you could call them a struggling or bad team but they're not.

Record doesn't mean a whole lot to me at this point in the context of this discussion. If we're going by record, Buffalo at 5-2 is better than Kent and Miami. And if you believe that, there's no helping you.

This isn't to say they haven't done well with what they have and who they've faced, I will stress.

We knew going into this season we would be a work in progress as these players learned to mesh together. (And shoot free throws!) I think most KSU fans are optimistic about the 2nd half of the year much more than the first half. We've seen that the last two games as we have stretches where we are not in sync. We are happy with our talent level, but we are not a top MAC team right now by any measure.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, right now it doesn't look like there really is a dominant team in the MAC, maybe 5-6 teams who appear to be a bit better than some of the others and 2-3 who look to be in serious trouble. Lots of parity. It will be an exciting season in which road wins will be at a real premium.

Also, though our new post man (Q) went down with a groin pull and only played 4 minutes last night in a game where he should have been dominating, and we generally just stunk it up, credit must be given to the job Gary Waters is doing at CSU. They are playing his tradmark tough D and the talent level has already improved with just one off-season to get it there. They will be a force in the Horizon next season and will cause problems this year as well.

Don't rain on our 5 - 2 start. We have a better than average chance to be 9 - 4 when we start conference play on Jan 7th @ BGSU. That being said, almost all UB fans are realistic (see http://www.ubfan.com) in that a .500 season in the MAC would be a very good accomplishment for this team.

17 - 12 would be really good for UB this year.

UB certainly has some talent and when they have both Smith and Idbihi playing well, they can win some games where they are underdogs. However, they tend to get into foul trouble alot and the team has issues with turnovers. When you lose by 30 to Evansville, however, even that "home win" against a lesser MAC foe can become a loss if they aren't playing well.

By the way, I LOVE the fact that we are talking about UB perhaps not being as good as their 5 - 2 record!!! It is not that long ago where 5 wins were a full season total and not a November total.

We were 5 - 23 in '99 -' 00
We were 4 - 24 in '00 - '01
We were 5 - 23 in '02 - '03

Go Bulls!