no reason Akron and Kent can't get 18k in that arena.....

(03-16-2024 08:29 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(03-16-2024 07:46 PM)UTROCKET Wrote:  LOL. Toledo fans complaining about Cleveland and Rocket Mortgage Arena hosting the MAC Championship. Like it matters anyways? We’re obviously playing only one game in Cleveland, max two!

The tournament makes perfect sense in Cleveland. The crowd looks GREAT tonight. So much better than the empty seats at the AAC tournament. And if I hear Toledo should host one more time…. NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

Cleveland is home to ZERO MAC schools, I don’t care how close Akron and Kent State are. Guess what!? We’re super close to Detroit for the MAC Championship football game.

Stop complaining and start winning conference tournament games!!

No one is complaining about the tournament being in Cleveland because UT hasn't won the tournament in a long time. We don't like it in Cleveland because the city doesn't support it, and games are played in a half empty arena. The semis last night had 7,800. Yea, the 'lower bowl' looks full BECAUSE IT IS 4 SMALL SECTIONS that are 15 rows on each side! It BETTER BE FULL!

(03-16-2024 08:37 PM)rocketinchitown2 Wrote:  no reason Akron and Kent can't get 18k in that arena.....

(03-16-2024 08:29 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(03-16-2024 07:46 PM)UTROCKET Wrote:  LOL. Toledo fans complaining about Cleveland and Rocket Mortgage Arena hosting the MAC Championship. Like it matters anyways? We’re obviously playing only one game in Cleveland, max two!

The tournament makes perfect sense in Cleveland. The crowd looks GREAT tonight. So much better than the empty seats at the AAC tournament. And if I hear Toledo should host one more time…. NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

Cleveland is home to ZERO MAC schools, I don’t care how close Akron and Kent State are. Guess what!? We’re super close to Detroit for the MAC Championship football game.

Stop complaining and start winning conference tournament games!!

No one is complaining about the tournament being in Cleveland because UT hasn't won the tournament in a long time. We don't like it in Cleveland because the city doesn't support it, and games are played in a half empty arena. The semis last night had 7,800. Yea, the 'lower bowl' looks full BECAUSE IT IS 4 SMALL SECTIONS that are 15 rows on each side! It BETTER BE FULL!

Akron and Kent barely get 3,500 (if that) for home games ... expecting 18,000 is a pipe dream. One more time ... this is an alumni event. Getting 8,000 is solid (doubtful Huntington would draw 8,000 for a Kent-Akron final). When the tournament first landed in Cleveland the semis and finals would draw 10,000 each as the MAC did a lot more local promotions, and the schools drew a lot more students. Barely any promos done now ... all the MAC $$$ spent is in Detroit for FB where, truth be told, attendance should be much better as well, with more locals in the seats.

just seems strange to me that two programs not an hour away that have been solid programs in the conference the last ten years can't garner a larger presence, alumni and all. I guess that is MAC life.

also why I just want Toledo to break through their dumb curse because if they started going to the tournament regularly, I think they could solidly get much bigger crowds. Seeing the crowds at Ohio State, Notre Dame and Illinois for football, I think just breaking through might get the continual fan support.

I think the MAC tourney should facilitate success/select for for the team that will best represent the league - aka win in the NCAA tourney. The NCAA tourney always has at least 1 day rest between games. Those NCAA tourney games are played in packed arenas. The MAC team with best record in league play is to some extent the one most likely to do best compared to others in NCAA. By making the top seeded MAC team play a morning game in a empty arena it is not setting the league up to find the team best suited to be successful in the NCAA tourney. By making the teams play 3 consecutive days in MAC tourney it is not facilitating success for the team that may best represent the league in a tourney that never makes teams play consecutive days. I believe the top 2 seeded teams should be better rewarded for their reg season success. If the MAC tourney was played on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday it would better facilitate success by the team that could best represent the league in NCAA tourney. Furthermore, the top 2 MAC tourney seeds should get a bye in first round of MAC tourney. The 3-8 seeded teams should play 1st round games at the home court of the higher seeded teams (as previously). The semi-finals should be played on a "neutral" court which is not so.large as to be impossible to be mostly full. Playing the MAC tourney in a empty arena on 3 consecutive days impacts how a coach should recruit, practice, and try to facilitate success for their team. It is ridiculous and illogical that coaches and teams should recruit and train to win in a empty srena on 3 consecutive days when that is not part of the equation during the regular season nor the NCAA tourney.

(03-16-2024 07:46 PM)UTROCKET Wrote:  LOL. Toledo fans complaining about Cleveland and Rocket Mortgage Arena hosting the MAC Championship. Like it matters anyways? We’re obviously playing only one game in Cleveland, max two!

The tournament makes perfect sense in Cleveland. The crowd looks GREAT tonight. So much better than the empty seats at the AAC tournament. And if I hear Toledo should host one more time…. NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

Cleveland is home to ZERO MAC schools, I don’t care how close Akron and Kent State are. Guess what!? We’re super close to Detroit for the MAC Championship football game.

Stop complaining and start winning conference tournament games!!

This right here

(03-16-2024 11:40 PM)UTfanBGalum Wrote:  I think the MAC tourney should facilitate success/select for for the team that will best represent the league - aka win in the NCAA tourney. The NCAA tourney always has at least 1 day rest between games. Those NCAA tourney games are played in packed arenas. The MAC team with best record in league play is to some extent the one most likely to do best compared to others in NCAA. By making the top seeded MAC team play a morning game in a empty arena it is not setting the league up to find the team best suited to be successful in the NCAA tourney. By making the teams play 3 consecutive days in MAC tourney it is not facilitating success for the team that may best represent the league in a tourney that never makes teams play consecutive days. I believe the top 2 seeded teams should be better rewarded for their reg season success. If the MAC tourney was played on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday it would better facilitate success by the team that could best represent the league in NCAA tourney. Furthermore, the top 2 MAC tourney seeds should get a bye in first round of MAC tourney. The 3-8 seeded teams should play 1st round games at the home court of the higher seeded teams (as previously). The semi-finals should be played on a "neutral" court which is not so.large as to be impossible to be mostly full. Playing the MAC tourney in a empty arena on 3 consecutive days impacts how a coach should recruit, practice, and try to facilitate success for their team. It is ridiculous and illogical that coaches and teams should recruit and train to win in a empty srena on 3 consecutive days when that is not part of the equation during the regular season nor the NCAA tourney.

The reason for the 3-games in three days is to facilitate the women's tournament. When the tournament first moved to Cleveland the women actually played in the convention center (a throw-back downtown facility which was actually pretty cool) before the women complained. I've often said the women's tournament should be a week earlier in Toledo or Grand Rapids, but no dice from the MAC.

As for the morning games, as I understand it the coaches want as much rest between games as possible. So playing the first game at 11, then the second at 6, is an extra 4-6 hours. The No. 1 seed gets the 8-seed to start, then gets extra rest time over its next opponent.

How many more breaks do you want. Let's look in the mirror and face facts. The No. 1 seed this year had twice as many MAC wins as the No. 8 seed. That's a game the No. 1 seed (which had already beaten No. 8 twice by a combined 30 points) should win no matter what time of day the game is played, or where it is played.

Finally, either give the regular season champ the auto bid or not. If you're going to have a tournament, it should be a fair tournament. I would say, if the format automatically put the regular season MAC champ in the title game, and the rest of the league played down to one opponent over 3 days, the MAC Champ would still complain because the opposition had 2-games in the arena before they did.

Just win, baby.

Need to dominate MAC opponents. Just not enough talent, particularly in the inside game to do that. Need a couple
6'9"Javan-type players to do that.

St. Francis's Hornbeak would have been a good role player for the Rockets. Imagine Simmons and Hornbeak on the court together.

(03-15-2024 01:04 PM)PTLROCK Wrote:  The final game on Saturday night last year was pretty packed and electric. The people volunteering at the concessions this year were working for a charitable organization to earn money for their cause. That was a very noble effort and opportunity. Toledo just needs to play better, then they will win. It is possible. It’s hard. But, there is no such thing as a curse.

Posted attendance for the MAC Championship between Akron & Kent State was 7,955.

The MAC would make just as much money from the tournament if they would have hosted two games.

Women's Championship game at Toledo on Friday - $15 ticket, MAC keeps all the money, Toledo vs. Ball State. Toledo gets the home court advantage for being the #1 seed and someone would have paid a small amount of money to put it on TV.

Men's Championship game at Toledo on Saturday - $25 ticket, MAC keeps all the money from tickets, UT can keep concessions and parking, and ESPN2 already had the game on TV.

Next year, whoever the regular season champions are - they get to host the championship games. Seems pretty simple and if you ever HOPED of being a two bid league, you need your two best teams battling on TV right before the tournament.

(03-17-2024 08:38 PM)Springboromark Wrote:  St. Francis's Hornbeak would have been a good role player for the Rockets. Imagine Simmons and Hornbeak on the court together.

Yeah TK needs to do a MUCH better job at recruiting local. How and why the hell is a 6’10” true center who played HS ball seconds away from Savage Arena playing at KENT?

(03-18-2024 02:37 PM)inductchuck16 Wrote:  

(03-17-2024 08:38 PM)Springboromark Wrote:  St. Francis's Hornbeak would have been a good role player for the Rockets. Imagine Simmons and Hornbeak on the court together.

Yeah TK needs to do a MUCH better job at recruiting local. How and why the hell is a 6’10” true center who played HS ball seconds away from Savage Arena playing at KENT?

He's averaging 4.6 pts, 4.2 rebs in his career. His best year was this year at 6.0 pts, 4.8 rebs. Nothing earth shattering. In HS, looks like he averaged around 12 & 6. I was trying to find his recruiting info and could barely find anything - only thing I could find said he had offers from Kent, Albany, and I think Robert Morris.

And we don't know why he went to Kent St. Maybe he wanted to leave Toledo and get out on his own. Maybe he liked Senderhoff more than TK. Maybe Kent had the major he wanted and UT didn't. Maybe he liked Kent's offensive philosophy more than UT's. It doesn't mean UT didn't do their job in recruiting. Every player is not a fit for every school.

(03-18-2024 04:34 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(03-18-2024 02:37 PM)inductchuck16 Wrote:  

(03-17-2024 08:38 PM)Springboromark Wrote:  St. Francis's Hornbeak would have been a good role player for the Rockets. Imagine Simmons and Hornbeak on the court together.

Yeah TK needs to do a MUCH better job at recruiting local. How and why the hell is a 6’10” true center who played HS ball seconds away from Savage Arena playing at KENT?

He's averaging 4.6 pts, 4.2 rebs in his career. His best year was this year at 6.0 pts, 4.8 rebs. Nothing earth shattering. In HS, looks like he averaged around 12 & 6. I was trying to find his recruiting info and could barely find anything - only thing I could find said he had offers from Kent, Albany, and I think Robert Morris.

And we don't know why he went to Kent St. Maybe he wanted to leave Toledo and get out on his own. Maybe he liked Senderhoff more than TK. Maybe Kent had the major he wanted and UT didn't. Maybe he liked Kent's offensive philosophy more than UT's. It doesn't mean UT didn't do their job in recruiting. Every player is not a fit for every school.

Absolutely correct on all accounts, but ... I think we would all agree TK wants/likes post players that can score and make FTs. If they can't do that, they don't play. Hornbeak is the perfect example of a Kent inside player that may have one or many major flaws yet does one thing the team needs. It be be rebounding (4.8 per 20 minutes is not bad) or blocked shots, or the ability to get a critical late game tip-in just because he's 6-10 and the opposition is not.

Kent played the entire tournament with Hornbeak and his 6-8 walk-on backup getting roughly equal time and I don't think they combined for 10 points or 10 rebounds between them.

Just checked: the two combined for 6pts/6/reb/2blks vs. Akron ... 9/13/0 vs. BG ... 5/8/4 vs. UT

Kent was still a foul away from potentially going to the NCAA Tournament. Hornbeak (tip-in) gave Kent the lead vs. Akron before the foul and his 3 blocks in final 2:30 vs. UT helped pull the first upset.

(03-18-2024 04:34 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(03-18-2024 02:37 PM)inductchuck16 Wrote:  

(03-17-2024 08:38 PM)Springboromark Wrote:  St. Francis's Hornbeak would have been a good role player for the Rockets. Imagine Simmons and Hornbeak on the court together.

Yeah TK needs to do a MUCH better job at recruiting local. How and why the hell is a 6’10” true center who played HS ball seconds away from Savage Arena playing at KENT?

He's averaging 4.6 pts, 4.2 rebs in his career. His best year was this year at 6.0 pts, 4.8 rebs. Nothing earth shattering. In HS, looks like he averaged around 12 & 6. I was trying to find his recruiting info and could barely find anything - only thing I could find said he had offers from Kent, Albany, and I think Robert Morris.

And we don't know why he went to Kent St. Maybe he wanted to leave Toledo and get out on his own. Maybe he liked Senderhoff more than TK. Maybe Kent had the major he wanted and UT didn't. Maybe he liked Kent's offensive philosophy more than UT's. It doesn't mean UT didn't do their job in recruiting. Every player is not a fit for every school.

Exactly. One shouldn't assume that just because a local player chose a different MAC school over UT, it was a recruiting failure on TK's part. There are a lot of different factors that go into recruiting decisions on both sides.

(03-18-2024 05:44 PM)RocketBBallFan Wrote:  

(03-18-2024 04:34 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(03-18-2024 02:37 PM)inductchuck16 Wrote:  

(03-17-2024 08:38 PM)Springboromark Wrote:  St. Francis's Hornbeak would have been a good role player for the Rockets. Imagine Simmons and Hornbeak on the court together.

Yeah TK needs to do a MUCH better job at recruiting local. How and why the hell is a 6’10” true center who played HS ball seconds away from Savage Arena playing at KENT?

He's averaging 4.6 pts, 4.2 rebs in his career. His best year was this year at 6.0 pts, 4.8 rebs. Nothing earth shattering. In HS, looks like he averaged around 12 & 6. I was trying to find his recruiting info and could barely find anything - only thing I could find said he had offers from Kent, Albany, and I think Robert Morris.

And we don't know why he went to Kent St. Maybe he wanted to leave Toledo and get out on his own. Maybe he liked Senderhoff more than TK. Maybe Kent had the major he wanted and UT didn't. Maybe he liked Kent's offensive philosophy more than UT's. It doesn't mean UT didn't do their job in recruiting. Every player is not a fit for every school.

Exactly. One shouldn't assume that just because a local player chose a different MAC school over UT, it was a recruiting failure on TK's part. There are a lot of different factors that go into recruiting decisions on both sides.

Yes, furthermore, Hornbeak had quite the growth spurt into his freshman year of college and Kent St worked miracles in putting a really athletic frame on him. At SFS he was decent but awkwardly sized, not built, but relatively athletic. Much of the conversation around him was "ehhh maybe D1 maybe not" rather than "for sure D1 starter".

(03-17-2024 07:48 AM)cleveland Wrote:  

(03-16-2024 11:40 PM)UTfanBGalum Wrote:  I think the MAC tourney should facilitate success/select for for the team that will best represent the league - aka win in the NCAA tourney. The NCAA tourney always has at least 1 day rest between games. Those NCAA tourney games are played in packed arenas. The MAC team with best record in league play is to some extent the one most likely to do best compared to others in NCAA. By making the top seeded MAC team play a morning game in a empty arena it is not setting the league up to find the team best suited to be successful in the NCAA tourney. By making the teams play 3 consecutive days in MAC tourney it is not facilitating success for the team that may best represent the league in a tourney that never makes teams play consecutive days. I believe the top 2 seeded teams should be better rewarded for their reg season success. If the MAC tourne⁴y was played on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday it would better facilitate success by the team that could best represent the league in NCAA tourney. Furthermore, the top 2 MAC tourney seeds should get a bye in first round of MAC tourney. The 3-8 seeded teams should play 1st round games at the home court of the higher seeded teams (as previously). The semi-finals should be played on a "neutral" court which is not so.large as to be impossible to be mostly full. Playing the MAC tourney in a empty arena on 3 consecutive days impacts how a coach should recruit, practice, and try to facilitate success for their team. It is ridiculous and illogical that coaches and teams should recruit and train to win in a empty srena on 3 consecutive days when that is not part of the equation during the regular season nor the NCAA tourney.

The reason for the 3-games in three days is to facilitate the women's tournament. When the tournament first moved to Cleveland the women actually played in the convention center (a throw-back downtown facility which was actually pretty cool) before the women complained. I've often said the women's tournament should be a week earlier in Toledo or Grand Rapids, but no dice from the MAC.

As for the morning games, as I understand it the coaches want as much rest between games as possible. So playing the first game at 11, then the second at 6, is an extra 4-6 hours. The No. 1 seed gets the 8-seed to start, then gets extra rest time over its next opponent.

How many more breaks do you want. Let's look in the mirror and face facts. The No. 1 seed this year had twice as many MAC wins as the No. 8 seed. That's a game the No. 1 seed (which had already beaten No. 8 twice by a combined 30 points) should win no matter what time of day the game is played, or where it is played.

Finally, either give the regular season champ the auto bid or not. If you're going to have a tournament, it should be a fair tournament. I would say, if the format automatically put the regular season MAC champ in the title game, and the rest of the league played down to one opponent over 3 days, the MAC Champ would still complain because the opposition had 2-games in the arena before they did, i

Just win, baby.i

1. I suggested only a first round bye for 1 and 2 seeds, not a bye to final. 2. In most respects, it would be easier rather than harder to hold both mens & womens tourneys tues-sat instead of wed-sat. 3. If the goal of conf tourney is "fairness" then there should be random seedings. 4. Goal of conf tourney imo is to select team that will best represent conference in NCAA.

oops

(03-18-2024 02:04 PM)Nick from Ohio Wrote:  

(03-15-2024 01:04 PM)PTLROCK Wrote:  The final game on Saturday night last year was pretty packed and electric. The people volunteering at the concessions this year were working for a charitable organization to earn money for their cause. That was a very noble effort and opportunity. Toledo just needs to play better, then they will win. It is possible. It’s hard. But, there is no such thing as a curse.

Posted attendance for the MAC Championship between Akron & Kent State was 7,955.

Watched a lot of these mid major tournaments played at neutral sites over the years. I think the MAC championship game stands up well to most of these other games. The A10 championship looked like maybe a couple thou tops. CUSA same thing. At least MAC seems to have kinda of a bigger feel to me.

I really don't have an issue with the MAC tournament in Cleveland. I've enjoyed going over when we had a reason to make the drive. Ultimately we just need to play better. Like going to Ford Field, if we make the finals, it's not too far of a drive. UT fans would do more than their part to fill the arena.

I wanted to offer a different perspective. My boss is a HS official in MI. He was invited to do one of the Championship games at the Breslin Center in Lansing.

He said both teams he officiated shot horribly in the games there. At least horribly for a championship game. Call it nerves or not. The kids aren't used to the massive arena and their depth perception is all off. Who knows if that is what leads to our tragic shooting and foul shooting woes in Cleveland? I think teams bus over, have a quick shoot around and then play. It's not an excuse, but it could be an explanation as to why we suddenly can't make foul shots and our normally consistent shooters can't find the rim.

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Pricing of tickets also is an issue

We are the MAC

Season ticket holders of MAC schools should be offered significant discounts to purchase tickets. Do concerts between the games. Make it fun

Imagine games in Seagate Center and Huntington Center at same time to get the games in a better time slot. Would also give teams an opportunity for a morning walk through where they were playing


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