CSNbbs

I take a brave stab in sorting out this mess: http://tinyurl.com/6a4acoe

The MAC is a mess this year. Buffalo is playing the best basketball right now, but who knows where they will end up at the end of the week.

Whoever can defend their homecourt and steal a few wins on the road wins the regular season IMO.

There is no way to predict what is going to happen in the tourney...other than Toledo, everyone has a chance at winning it all. I think it will be someone from the East.

(01-25-2011 04:34 PM)niuliger09 Wrote: [ -> ]There is no way to predict what is going to happen in the tourney...other than Toledo, everyone has a chance at winning it all. I think it will be someone from the East.

I don't expect Toledo to come anywhere near winning the MAC tournament, but to say that everyone in the conference other than Toledo has a chance just doesn't make sense. Toledo has the same conference record as Ohio University. Toledo beat Western Michigan and played Ball State fairly tough, only losing to them by 10 points and having a 1 point lead at halftime. If anyone else in the conference is capable of putting together a few wins in a row, so is Toledo. Now that chance may be something like a 5% chance, but it can't be much worse of a chance than teams like Northern Illinois, Central Michigan, Ohio, and Eastern Michigan have.

(01-25-2011 07:43 PM)BrianNowicki Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-25-2011 04:34 PM)niuliger09 Wrote: [ -> ]There is no way to predict what is going to happen in the tourney...other than Toledo, everyone has a chance at winning it all. I think it will be someone from the East.

I don't expect Toledo to come anywhere near winning the MAC tournament, but to say that everyone in the conference other than Toledo has a chance just doesn't make sense. Toledo has the same conference record as Ohio University. Toledo beat Western Michigan and played Ball State fairly tough, only losing to them by 10 points and having a 1 point lead at halftime. If anyone else in the conference is capable of putting together a few wins in a row, so is Toledo. Now that chance may be something like a 5% chance, but it can't be much worse of a chance than teams like Northern Illinois, Central Michigan, Ohio, and Eastern Michigan have.

Toledo has improved a lot from the beginning of the season and you can tell how well coached they are this year, but they don't have the horses to put together a run in the tournament.

Ohio plays in the East, arguably a much tougher conference from top to bottom.

I do think none of the Michigan schools have enough to win it all either, but I wouldn't be surprised if they get lucky and come up with the title.

NIU is not going to play defense any time soon but they have the scoring power to get through the tourney.

The difference between Toledo and the teams you listed (NIU, CMU, Ohio, and EMU) is that all of those teams have at least one player that is among the top players in the MAC, including arguably 3 of the top 5 (Silas, Ziegler, Cooper). In basketball one player can make a huge difference, especially come tourney time. Would I put money on any of those teams? Probably not, but I like their chances much more than Toledo's.

Then again the MAC is so unpredictable this year that I wouldn't be surprised if Toledo makes a run at the title game.

As it's been mentioned here, Toledo continues to improve as the season goes on....come tourney time they might be capable of putting together a run, after all they did win three in a row just before losing to Alabama by 40 or 50.

Toledo played BG tough tonight, losing just 70-64.....and it was close all game long. Not bad for a team that has a bunch of walk-ons playing.

(01-25-2011 08:08 PM)niuliger09 Wrote: [ -> ]Then again the MAC is so unpredictable this year that I wouldn't be surprised if Toledo makes a run at the title game.

Liar.

(01-25-2011 10:52 PM)H2Oville Rocket Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-25-2011 08:08 PM)niuliger09 Wrote: [ -> ]Then again the MAC is so unpredictable this year that I wouldn't be surprised if Toledo makes a run at the title game.

Liar.

Toledo plays 3 very winnable games to finish conference play, maybe even 4 if they improve enough until the end of the season.

My sentence speaks more to how bad the West is this year and to how even the East is.