Ohio comfortably beat Purdue tonight to remain undefeated. Purdue previously had lost twice, to Connecticut and St. John's. The Boilermakers beat 25th-ranked Miami. Buffalo and Central Michigan have only one loss each. Buffalo lost to 3rd-ranked Oregon, and the Bulls have beaten Georgetown and South Dakota State. Central's only loss is to South Dakota State. (Yes, SDSU is good.) The Chips have beaten Quinnipiac and Central Florida.

The bottom of the conference doesn't look quite as strong as last year, but we could be looking at another two-bid year. Buffalo has had a couple injuries, and their second-best players is out for the semester due to grade issues. Cierra Dillard is carrying the team right now.

Miami has only lost to 5th ranked Louisville too.

(12-05-2018 10:25 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  Miami has only lost to 5th ranked Louisville too.

We beat UC by 13 in Oxford tonight to go 6-1 with the only loss to Louisville. Other than Louisville, we have played low level D-1 teams, UC is our best win, but we are deserving of being mentioned with Ohio, UB, and CMU.

Where do folks see EMU? Seem to have started well. Only losses to high major teams.

(12-05-2018 11:11 PM)DICK Wrote:  

(12-05-2018 10:25 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  Miami has only lost to 5th ranked Louisville too.

We beat UC by 13 in Oxford tonight to go 6-1 with the only loss to Louisville. Other than Louisville, we have played low level D-1 teams, UC is our best win, but we are deserving of being mentioned with Ohio, UB, and CMU.

To me Miami hasn't proven anything yet. They've won the games they were supposed to win, and of course they weren't going to beat Louisville. Cincinnati is not a good team, though, so that's not a very impressive best win. Cincinnati's RPI is 221, and Bearcats lost to Ball State, one of the worst teams in the MAC this year. Miami might be as good as Ohio, Buffalo, and Central, but I would say we have no way to know that yet, and we won't find out until January.

With Miami's non-conference schedule, the Redhawks have no chance to get an at-large NCAA bid. The better MAC teams have found ways to play tougher schedules. Miami needs to do that as well.

At this point I would mention Toledo before Miami. The Rockets have beaten Duquesne and Belmont, both of which have much more impressive resumes than Cincinnati. Toledo's only losses were on the road to Maine and Dayton, both pretty good teams.

(12-06-2018 06:31 AM)Dwight Wrote:  

(12-05-2018 11:11 PM)DICK Wrote:  

(12-05-2018 10:25 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  Miami has only lost to 5th ranked Louisville too.

We beat UC by 13 in Oxford tonight to go 6-1 with the only loss to Louisville. Other than Louisville, we have played low level D-1 teams, UC is our best win, but we are deserving of being mentioned with Ohio, UB, and CMU.

To me Miami hasn't proven anything yet. They've won the games they were supposed to win, and of course they weren't going to beat Louisville. Cincinnati is not a good team, though, so that's not a very impressive best win. Cincinnati's RPI is 221, and Bearcats lost to Ball State, one of the worst teams in the MAC this year. Miami might be as good as Ohio, Buffalo, and Central, but I would say we have no way to know that yet, and we won't find out until January.

With Miami's non-conference schedule, the Redhawks have no chance to get an at-large NCAA bid. The better MAC teams have found ways to play tougher schedules. Miami needs to do that as well.

At this point I would mention Toledo before Miami. The Rockets have beaten Duquesne and Belmont, both of which have much more impressive resumes than Cincinnati. Toledo's only losses were on the road to Maine and Dayton, both pretty good teams.

Well, Yes, Miami has not really proven a lot so far, but we have not had the opportunity to yet. Last year this coach and this team just kept getting better and better all year long. You can see that happening again. We entered the MAC tournament having won 10 of 11 and beat Ohio and then lost to Central ( who had beaten us badly earlier in the year) by 3 points in the MAC semifinals. We missed our last 6 shots in that game, or there would have been no sweet 16 for Central. Miami went 3-0 vs Ohio last year. Like the other top teams, we had some graduation losses, but we do have our top 3 scorers returning and we do have a very good freshman. While this team has not had any big wins, there is nothing at this point to show that they are not as good as the 3 teams you listed.

I looked up realtime RPI ( unlike the men, the women are still using RPI this year as the tool to rank women's teams statistically. Last year, in the MAC women's greatest season, we ended up the #7 conference in RPI. Right now we are #11. However, the MAC has a 65% winning percentage ( against D-1 teams), which is higher that the teams ranked #8,#9, and #10, which means there is a strong chance that we will pass all 3 of those leagues eventually. Remember that 75% of RPI is your opponents and your opponent's opponents RPI, and that is going to be a strong number for all our teams once league play starts. Here is where we are currently:

CMU 44 7-1
OU 61 7-0
UB 68 6-1
UT 90 6-2
NIU 99 4-3
MU 115 6-1
EMU 168 4-2
BG 171 3-4
KSU 185 3-4
UA 211 5-4
BSU 284 2-6
WM 333 2-4
I think Miami is higher than we were at this time last year, In fact I don't think we entered the top 100 for good until late January of early February, yet we ended up the year in the 60-70 range. I think both UB and CMU climbed during the league season as well. With the 65% winning percentage, whoever can pile up a strong league record will have the chance to climb up pretty high

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Well, Yes, Miami has not really proven a lot so far, but we have not had the opportunity to yet. Last year this coach and this team just kept getting better and better all year long. You can see that happening again. We entered the MAC tournament having won 10 of 11 and beat Ohio and then lost to Central ( who had beaten us badly earlier in the year) by 3 points in the MAC semifinals. We missed our last 6 shots in that game, or there would have been no sweet 16 for Central. Miami went 3-0 vs Ohio last year. Like the other top teams, we had some graduation losses, but we do have our top 3 scorers returning and we do have a very good freshman. While this team has not had any big wins, there is nothing at this point to show that they are not as good as the 3 teams you listed.
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I agree with you that Miami may prove to be as good as Ohio, Central, or Buffalo. I mentioned those three teams as the ones with a chance to get an at-large bid. I think the Redhawks have no chance because of their non-conference schedule. A MAC team with zero respectable non-conference wins just can't get an invite. The MAC has improved, but it's not that good.

We would have to have some kind of ridiculous record, like going 10-1 nonleague and 16-2 league and then get beat in the conference tourney, maybe 27-4. That would give us a very low RPI and would likely be enough, considering the new found respect for the league. So Yeah, that seems unlikey with as many tough league games as there will be for all of us.

(12-06-2018 11:03 PM)DICK Wrote:  We would have to have some kind of ridiculous record, like going 10-1 nonleague and 16-2 league and then get beat in the conference tourney, maybe 27-4. That would give us a very low RPI and would likely be enough, considering the new found respect for the league. So Yeah, that seems unlikey with as many tough league games as there will be for all of us.

I would say at least that good. Some years back Toledo lost at Dayton, at Central Michigan (in the Crystal Bradford years), and to Central Michigan again in the tournament. That's it, only three losses, but no signature non-conference wins. That was good for a trip to the NIT. Granted, the conference is a little better now than it was then, so that helps.