CSNbbs

Question, I know ESPN covers the MAC Championship Game but what about the 1st Round, Quarters and Semis? Are they available on ESPN Full Court or Fox Sports Net?

That will be a very interesting tournament in Cleveland. My $$$ is still on Kent State by the way. They are still the "Big Dawgs" of the MAC after last season's performance.

ESPN will probably only do the final. I believe Fox Sports Ohio does some games leading up to the final. Whether other networks will pick those games up, I don't know.

They also had a radio network set up for the tournament. The semifinal games were available on the Internet, and it was a very nice sounding radio feed.

axeme Wrote:Anyway, back to the original topic--with there being so much "parity" (i.e. mediocrity) in the MAC this year, when has first game seeding been more important?
It's so hard to win four in row, espeically if you start on the road that the 9-13 spots are very much to be avoided. Obviously it's a big advantage to skip the first game, but once things hit the Gund I think it's going to come down to matchups more than talent. Avoid the teams that best exploit your weaknesses and you have a much smoother path to the end. ANd those teams differ for everyone, since we lack a truly dominent team.

This is the type of dialogue I was hoping to start, rather than an OU-Kent flame war.

After this week's upsets, I'm not sure who will be hosting in the first round. OU will probably be on the road, unless we can pull off a highly improbable three game win streak (vs. Marshall, @Miami, @Kent). Buffalo and UT are also, obviously road bound.

If I had to predict things right now, I would guess that BSU (10-8), WMU (9-9), Marshall (9-9) & Akron (9-9) host in the first round, along with the loser of NIU/CMU/Miami/Kent who gets to beat Buffalo at home.

In that scenario, BSU gets the 5, WMU 6, Marshall 7, Akron 8.

EMU & BG (8-10) would be the 9/10, OU the 11 (7-11), and UT the 12 (5-13).

Even if OU wins one of its road games, it would still be the 11 in this scenario, losing the tie-breakers to EMU & BG.

Putting on my OU hat, I'd much prefer to see us play at Akron or Marshall. WMU always beats us in K-Zoo. We seem to have Marshall's number lately, and Hipsher is always terrible in the MAC Tourney.

If it plays out this way, I'd expect to see all the home teams win, with the possible exception of an EMU upset. Of course, with the unpredictable nature of the MAC, we'll probably have OU, EMU, & BG all hosting.

It was a great win for our conference and points out what is great about MAC basketball, we are easily the deepest midmajor conference in the country. OU may be headed for a #11 seed, but they might have finished first or second in many conferences. A midlevel ACC school is expected to be able to go on the road and beat all but the elite midmajors. OUr 11th best team beat them..........While Kent has been outstanding in recent years in just about everything but football, it is a bit ridiculous for them to be calling out OU, who has traditionally been far superior to Kent. Kent has plenty to be proud of, but historically they still rate at the bottom of the MAC for athletic tradition. It doesn't hurt anyone to give a little respect to the accomplishments of other schools and to appreciate the history of each program.

No one can or should disparage Kent's recent hoops. Very impressive.

One slight 'correction.' We Bobs have much underachieved in hoops this year. I think most had us, at worst, in the top three or four of the MAC this year. So, '11th best MAC team' is not entirely a fair description, perhaps.

For all of our significant underachieving, there's the possibility that we are finally playing better now and getting all of our players healthy. Sixth man and instant offense Sonny Johnson hasn't played much (perhaps 40 minutes) in the last eight games or so. And last night v. VA was Delvar Barrett's first appearance of over 12 minutes in about 10+ games. Delvar, besides being a great character/story guy (to be featured on ESPN this Sunday at 11pm, I think) is a pretty good big man. He's the only effective player over 6'6" (he's about 6'9" and 270) for the Bobs beside BHunter. That is, BHunter has been playing 'unprotected' for about half the season (and putting up some huge #'s despite little frontcourt help). Delvar has pretty good hands, is worth about 9 and 6 a game and hits his freethrows. He helps us a lot--really a much better team with him. If we get Sonny back and keep playing with effort and unselfishly....