Against Majors (4-12):
ACC (1-1)
Big East (0-1)
Big 10 (1-1)
Conference USA (2-4)
Pac 10 (0-2)
SEC (0-3)

Against Mid-Majors (21-14):
A-10 (3-0)
Colonial (0-2)
Horizon (12-3)
Mis Valley (4-6)
Sunbelt (0-2)
WAC (1-0)
West Coast (1-1)

Against Others (16-2):
American East (1-0)
Independent (1-0)
Metro Atlantic (3-0)
MEAC (1-0)
Mid-Continent (3-0)
Northeast (1-1)
Ohio Valley (2-0)
Patriot (2-1)
Southern (4-0)

• The MAC is currently 8th in conference RPI, behind the 6 BCS Conference and the Missouri Valley. The gap between the MAC and Missouri Valley is significant (.022), while the MAC is barely ahead of the West Coast and Conference USA. Another big gap and 5 more conferences bunched closely together (CAA, A-10, Mountain West, Sun Belt and WAC). Then another gap, and the Horizon is 16th, and really on the fringes on mid-major with the Southern Conference.

• Lots of big games this week, all on the road:

• Dec. 20th: Central Michigan at Vanderbilt. I don’t think CMU is particularly good, but they have a lot of interesting young ballplayers, so this could be fun.
• Dec. 21st: Buffalo at Penn St. A win here could go a long way to establish Buffalo as a top contender for the MAC-East.
• Dec. 21st: Northern Illinois at Kansas St. Northern is a fun team and already beaten a strong DePaul team on the road. K-State is largely untested, their best win is at Wyoming.
• Dec. 22nd: Western Michigan at Virginia Tech: V-Tech has played a soft schedule, so Western should be a good test.
• Dec. 22rd: Auburn vs. Toledo (in San Juan): I am pretty unconvinced that Toledo is going to be the cream of the MAC given their non-conference performance so far. This will be Toledo’s third game in three days (Middle Tenn. St and Delaware). I would say three wins this week will be necessary to re-establish their potential.
• Dec. 22rd: Notre Dame at Kent: Finally, a major conference club comes to the MAC...what? Notre Dame (OH). I thought that was a girl's college. Ummm. Nevermind.
• Dec. 23rd: Akron at Dayton: Another win over the A-10 would be nice.

<span style='font-family:Times'><span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:blue'>Where is the Big 12 Conference on your list? And how come CUSA is listed with the "Majors"? I've always thought the only major conferences out there were the Power $ix ($EC, ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, and Pac-10) based on how the conferences are positioned in affiliation with the BC$ in football.

BTW, I heard Toledo had one of their guys quit the team right before the San Juan Shootout. Which reminds me. It's 8:30am and tip-off for Toledo and Middle Tennessee is in 30 minutes.

Middle Tennessee will definitely give Toledo a match if the Rockets are indeed as good as you say they are. We also have our star transfer from Georgia, Steve Thomas, becoming eligible to play starting with Toledo this morning.</span></span></span>

Do not forget Kent State at Boston College 29Dec. BC is number 1 in the RPI.

BlueRaiderPride Wrote:<span style='font-family:Times'><span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:blue'>Where is the Big 12 Conference on your list? And how come CUSA is listed with the "Majors"? I've always thought the only major conferences out there were the Power $ix ($EC, ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, and Pac-10) based on how the conferences are positioned in affiliation with the BC$ in football.

BTW, I heard Toledo had one of their guys quit the team right before the San Juan Shootout. Which reminds me. It's 8:30am and tip-off for Toledo and Middle Tennessee is in 30 minutes.

Middle Tennessee will definitely give Toledo a match if the Rockets are indeed as good as you say they are. We also have our star transfer from Georgia, Steve Thomas, becoming eligible to play starting with Toledo this morning.</span></span></span>

C-USA is listed as a major because they finished 5th in the Conference RPI in 2003-4 and 7th in 2002-3 (with a large gap between 7th and 8th). You can make a strong argument that they are a power conference. I tried to define the lines as fairly as possible, but there are going to be conferences that ride the fringe from major to mid-major (CUSA, Mountain West, Miss. Valley, WAC) and conferences that ride the fringe from mid-major to other (Horizon, Southern). It's all just my best guess and I don't mean to sound like an expert, so take it all with a grain of salt.

The way Toledo has played this year, I wouldn't be surprised if MidTenSt beats them. Oh, I'm sorry, they are beating them, by 4 with 6 minutes left.

And, no, I certainly haven't forgotten about Kent at BC.

Monday morning hoops. Does life get any better?
Not until there are games on all day, every day.
All Ican get are the scroe updates, which are behind as I see MT up with 6:40 left.
Updates, please!

<span style='font-family:Times'><span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:blue'>Middle Tennessee held off Toledo 70-65, but these were two very evenly matched teams. MT shot 52% from the field while Toledo shot 50% from the field. MT had 18 turnovers and Toledo had 17 turnovers.

Toledo really has some kids that can shoot rockets from behind the arc. Keith Triplett hit like three 3's and scored 19 on the day. Some others that seems to do well for Toledo and forgive me if these names are mispelled were Ingram, Payne, and Valencia.

It appeared that Florentino Valencia struggled from the charity stripe though he went there often.</span></span></span>

who won this game?

The score I saw said Toledo, yet the last post implies MTSU.

<span style='font-family:Times'><span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:blue'>Middle Tennessee won 70-65. This win coupled by New Mexico State's win over Western Michigan and Western Kentucky's win over Marshall makes the Sun Belt 3-0 against teams from the Mid-American Conference. We are definitely getting better!</span></span></span>

apparently AOL Scoreboard has it wrong... I guess...

FINAL
TOLEDO 70
MID. TENN. ST. 65

ESPN has MTSU winning 70 - 65.

I've been to the Shootout before.

I can believe the folks there making this kind of mistake.

<span style='font-family:Times'><span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:blue'>Largest crowd to ever watch a game at the San Juan Shootout. Thought that was kinda' neat.</span></span></span>

We beat NMSU, which makes us 1-0 vs. the Sun Belt, so that means the A Sun is better than the Sun Belt

We beat Belmont by 20 so you're 1-1

El Toe-lay-do Rockettos es muy malo.

I'm sorry could you explain? I don't speak German :D

Ouch!

The MAC looks to go 0-3 today with a Toledo loss to MTSU :rolleyes:, EMU on its way to a surprising loss to Detroit ( chalk it up to sleep walking after break) and the Chips getting run off the court with Vandy at halftime.

Let's hope this is just a small road bump.. The MAC should bounce back nicely tomorrow (Tuesday) to build upon their 45-31 record OOC against D1 competition.

FWIW, Central Michigan went on a huge 24-5 run in the first six minutes of the second half to whittle the Vanderbilt lead to ten. But from then on it was Vandy all the way... final score 86-54.

Okie Chippewa Wrote:Let's hope this is just a small road bump.. The MAC should bounce back nicely tomorrow (Tuesday) to build upon their 45-31 record OOC against D1 competition.

FWIW, Central Michigan went on a huge 24-5 run in the first six minutes of the second half to whittle the Vanderbilt lead to ten. But from then on it was Vandy all the way... final score 86-54.

Let's be honest, we weren't exactly dealing with the cream of the MAC. I say the flower is off of Toledo's bloom. Tough schedule or not, I think they'll be hard-pressed to be 500 in the MAC. Central's got a fun team with lots of 2006 potential, but I think they'll end up with a pretty crummy record this year. Eastern's 4 wins were over some pretty bad teams, and Detroit is usually a pretty good team, so I am surprised they have started sooo badly.

Not to start a flame war, and I appreciate what Marshall has done for the MAC football, but I'm not going to miss Marshall in men's basketball. They've been ok, but always finished below expectations.

Didn't someone post that a player quit on the Rockets just before San Juan? Is this true?

<span style='font-family:Times'><span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:blue'>We were discussing that on the Middle Tennessee forum a day or so ago. #4 Will Burger quit Toledo's team.

He was a 6-4 190 lbs sophomore who played guard for the Rockets. From Willowick, Ohio played at Villa-Angela--St. Joseph.

One thing we were wondering is if this was a kid that got plenty of playing time, and was he a major contributor for the Rockets. It would seem odd for him to quit if he was getting to see alot of action.

BTW, Toledo has Delaware this morning. Delaware got killed by a suspect Auburn Tiger team yesterday in the latter game. Delaware is without five starters in the San Juan Shootout which explains why they lost by nearly 30 points to Auburn who has a couple of surprising losses to Wofford and Nevada-Las Vegas already.

If it's any consolation to Toledo for losing to us, I was very surprised to hear Auburn's headcoach call Middle Tennessee "the best team in the San Juan Shootout".</span></span></span>