Krocker Krapp Wrote:Why are some people, or media sources, acting like the MAC having 14 teams is something new and unprecedented? That was also the previous membership size in 2002, 2003, and 2004 when Marshall and Central Florida were around.
There is some apprehension of moving beyond 12 schools for football reasons. I understand that.
The MAC is doing this move to 14 (eventually 16) for men's basketball using its strength as an all sports FBS conference as a selling point.
Its kind of like the Atlantic 10 expanding with Dayton, Xavier and later Charlotte and St. Louis. Are there too many teams in the A-10? Certainly but the footprint has been expanded.
Temple and WKU are going to be transformational members of MAC basketball. Those are two programs that have traditions that will rank as #1 and #2 in MAC basketball right from the beginning. You are placing those traditions in a group of already strong mid major schools and they could take the MAC to not only 2 bids but possibly as many as 3 or 4 NCAA qualifiers.
Within a few years the MAC will be at least as good if not better than the MVC/A-10, that will open the way for UMass and IL State to join then things will be even more tilted in favor of the MAC.
The upper 8 programs of MAC hoops would be
Temple
UMass
Kent
Ohio
Miami
Ball State
Western Kentucky
Ill. State
It would be like the A-10 where only the top 8 or so programs are shown on ESPN but it would be a very positive national image for MAC basketball worthy of far more TV coverage then only Kent, Ohio, Miami, and Ball State alone.
With (UMass, Temple, WKU, ISU) the MAC would be the MVC on steroids.