You annually start with the three 'home' teams, Akron, Kent, Ohio.

Right now, Ohio is far and away playing the best of the three, and with their traditional Cleveland Alumni base on hand must be considered the favorite.

Akron has been imploding down the stretch and Kent is a walking M.A.S.H unit that was shy quality PG talent even when healthy.

Next is the true favorite: Toledo. I mean, yes, Cleveland is traditionally kryptonite to the Rockets. But damn, if UT can't win it all this time around, they might as well stay home after this.

After Ohio and Toledo, if any other team wins the tournament, they won't have to go far for their NCAA Tournament game as I would be shocked if it wasn't for a Play In Game (PIG) in Dayton.

And that would be an appropriate end to perhaps the worst MAC basketball season on record in the modern (post 1978) age.

Toledos women will likely play Saturday to give the fans added motivation to get to the Arena. I'd say UT will have a close to half and half crowd vs. Akron or Ohio. Kent is the real big draw there, and will have a decent crowd compared to any other team who would draw the 11am Thursday slot vs. UT. Akron draws so few for regular season games, them having 10k seems unlikely. Probably 6k for them and 4k for Toledo.

WBB today: Perfect storm for Huskies, as NIU over WMU, Miami-O over Ohio. NIU has tiebreaker over Ohio so gets 6th seed and avoids playing 1-seed Toledo or 2-seed Ball State in Round 1. So I believe it's Kent State in MACT. At this point, wil take what we can get. NIU MBB is done.

And here it is ...

https://getsomemaction.com/documents/202...cket24.pdf

Whoever wins this tournament is probably looking at a 15 seed. Every team looks very flawed. I don't see anyone putting up much of a fight in the tournament.

(03-10-2024 11:12 AM)kreed5120 Wrote:  Whoever wins this tournament is probably looking at a 15 seed. Every team looks very flawed. I don't see anyway putting up much of a fight in the tournament.

If Ali Ali goes for 25, Freeman gets 15 boards and has a matchup win over a center, and Akron slows it down and defends they can beat a lot of teams.

Toledo and Ohio could shoot 60% from three and win a game 100 to 96. Ohio is very deep. Toledo has 6 capable scorers so taking away 1 player doesn't really hurt. These 15 seeds are more often overlooked although the opponent is better.

There's a chance...

(03-10-2024 12:50 PM)UofToledoFans Wrote:  

(03-10-2024 11:12 AM)kreed5120 Wrote:  Whoever wins this tournament is probably looking at a 15 seed. Every team looks very flawed. I don't see anyway putting up much of a fight in the tournament.

If Ali Ali goes for 25, Freeman gets 15 boards and has a matchup win over a center, and Akron slows it down and defends they can beat a lot of teams.

Toledo and Ohio could shoot 60% from three and win a game 100 to 96. Ohio is very deep. Toledo has 6 capable scorers so taking away 1 player doesn't really hurt. These 15 seeds are more often overlooked although the opponent is better.

There's a chance...

On paper this Akron team looked dangerously good coming into the season. They even were playing fairly well during OOC with close losses to several top 100 teams despite Ali being out.

Since that time they have looked very exposed. Outside of Freeman, nobody has really done the gritty work of giving 110% on those 50/50 balls. None of the transfer guards emerged as a viable starter. Dawson doesn't look like the same player he was prior to the injury. I just don't think this team ever reached its potential and currently looks like they're in free fall. The talent is there, but I'm just not hopeful that they will magically fix everything.

(03-10-2024 11:12 AM)kreed5120 Wrote:  Whoever wins this tournament is probably looking at a 15 seed. Every team looks very flawed. I don't see anyway putting up much of a fight in the tournament.

Mens hoops is largely a dumpster fire nationally in my opinion. Many top 15 teams can’t win on the road consistently. I’ll take our chances in a 1 game series as a 15 seed and see what happens. Better than not getting there.