Men's Basketball?? An interlude...

Yes, it is that overlap time of year, when basketball and football co-exist in the mind of the Falcon fan.  We are going to use the break for football to spend some time looking ahead to the men's basketball season....starting with the results of the MAC media poll, which was released today.




The upshot is that BG is picked to finish 5th in the East, with only Miami picked lower.

This is the only logical thing anyone could have picked.  BG was an average team at best last year and lost 3 of its more productive players and in each case the next man up is someone who has never shown in public that they are capable of filling those roles.  For that reason, you just have to expect this kind of pick.

It doesn't mean those guys can't or won't step up...it just means no one has seen them do it.  They may be doing it like crazy in practice, but no one else has seen it.

We'll go through those things in the next couple days.  I'd have to say, this is where I would pick our team as well.  We are in the toughest division in the MAC, with very strong OU, Kent and Akron programs, and coming off last season with the graduation losses we had, this is just a reasonable expectation.

Obviously, the highest level of love is for OU.  You can see where the rest falls out.

Note, also, that A'uston Calhoun is picked to the All-East team with some pretty good players.

Finally, note that Toledo is picked to win the West.  Not to confuse the issue with my hate for Toledo (and I hate Toledo), it is important to look at UT and EMU...both teams were awful only a couple of years ago, and yet now they are passing us, and our program has been in place a lot longer.  It just seems like other teams are succeeding and we are languishing.

Having said that, expectations are there to be exceeded.  Let us hope that this will look different in March than it does today.

2012-13 East Division Predicted Order of Finish
1. Ohio – 141 Votes (19 first place votes)
2. Akron – 122 Votes (5)
3. Kent State – 89 Votes
4. Buffalo – 68 Votes
5. Bowling Green – 53 Votes
6. Miami – 31 Votes

2012-13 West Division Predicted Order of Finish
1. Toledo – 143 Votes (20 first place votes)
2. Eastern Michigan – 118 Votes (4)
3. Western Michigan – 88 Votes
4. Ball State – 74 Votes
5. Northern Illinois – 46 Votes
6. Central Michigan – 35 Votes

2012-13 East Division Preseason All-MAC Team
Zeke Marshall, Akron
A’uston Calhoun, Bowling Green
Javon McCrea, Buffalo
Walter Offutt, Ohio
D.J. Cooper, Ohio

2012-13 West Division Preseason All-MAC Team
Jesse Berry, Ball State
Abdel Nader, Northern Illinois
Rian Pearson, Toledo
Julius Brown, Toledo
Nate Hutcheson, Western Michigan