MAC Blogger Roundtable

So, it was my turn to write questions for the MAC Blogger Roundtable.  We got answers from Hustle Belt and from Bull Run, and they are captured below....

Who's doing a better job coaching this year? Reggie Witherspoon or Rob Murphy?

(Hustle Belt)  Murphy by a mile. He saw the kernels of talent left over by the Charles Ramsey dynasty and saw little shooting ability but some big size and hustle throughout. So he made them keep the opponent to under 25 per half and it won't always work against Kent State and Michigan State, but for now it's keeping them in the hunt for a neat, neat seed.

Witherspoon is staying afloat in the MAC East with the talents he recruited, and not finishing fifth or sixth is going to be an accomplishment in that division. I give this to Murphy.

(Bull Run)  If you measure a coach by how he uses the tools he is given then hands down it's Murphy. Falcon Blog summed it up really well:

Last year, EMU was 9-21 with one of the 20 worst RPIs in D1 basketball. They were 5-11 in the MAC finishing tied for 10th. That team lost its top scorer and rebounder--its only double figures scorer, in fact. They fired their coach, and brought in a Syracuse assistant who is in the first year of implementing a defensive style and the same 2-3 zone that BG has been trying to use for five years. And for all that, EMU beat BG last night. EMU is 5-2 in the MAC.

If this is what he can do with the dumpster fire he inherited in Ypsi then the MAC west should shudder at what he will manage to do with thee or four years of team building under his belt. EMU can be the first MAC team, in some time, that might be able to stand up regularly against the East.

Witherspoon's tenure at Buffalo, if it were a kid, would be going into high school. He is having a good year but given the talent he has that's not too surprising. Murphy is pacing the game, and his approach, around the tools he has.

(My note:  I agree.  Murphy is doing a great job with very little, and thanks to Bull Run for the compliment in my most, written out of frustration that EMU seems to have improved so much while our team seems flat.  I asked the question that way because I think Buffalo is the next most improved team in the MAC.)

How are you feeling about the bracket buster? Both this year's matchup(s) and in general.

(Hustle Belt)  Honestly it's starting to become a bit of a chore. Just trying to keep track of 12 games on one day ... it's always tough to balance it. And yet each one is a little fascinating because it's a quirky little pop quiz in the middle of the year. They're like bowls. They don't accomplish the spirit of the intent, which was to give bubble teams a quality win to improve at-large hopes. But many of these teams are just trying to win their conference — so it'll potentially help one team improve a seed, whichever one wins the MAC, or potentially hurt it.

Generally speaking it's a mixed bag this year. Buffalo-South Dakota State could be a fun under-the-radar one (even though it's televised) but I even want to peek into ones like NIU-SIU Edwardsville, because who isn't at least a little curious how much of a 40fest that could be?


(Bull Run)  (as I write this on Sunday the pairings are still not known) Most places have UB as one of the better road teams this season so the Bulls should get a TV game and a crack at a quality win, something they badly need if they want to impress the NIT should UB fail to win the MAC.

(My comments.  I like the bracket buster.  I think it has lost some of the excitement from when it first started, but it does generate quality home games.  My only beef is when we get paired with Detroit or Youngstown State.  There should be a rule that you at least get to see someone different.)


Based on this, the four lowest ranked teams in the MAC are also the four most inexperienced. Does this surprise you?

(Hustle Belt)  Things aren't supposed to make sense in the MAC like that. I don't like expectations. And while they're each a bit different in why they're inexperienced, I suppose that makes it okay. I don't think anybody expected for Miami, par example, to be where they were based on suspensions and injury, not to mention the Julian Mavunga cloning device shorting out the week before the season started.


(Bull Run)  Well that only somewhat telling. Toledo has serious problems that are *preventing* them from getting the experience they need. Northern Illinois just dumped their best player in what can be called an ethical, yet disastrous, decision.

Who's broken out of the bottom of the pack from last year? Aside from EMU getting better and Miami falling apart the MAC's cellar is just about the same as it's been for several seasons.

Of course experience matters but so does organization.

(I thought it was interesting, but Bull Run is right, these teams have been near the bottom without regard to the experience of their players.  You have to have experienced players and good players.)


It seems like I do less head shaking at the MAC's officiating than I used to. Is it better...or are we just used to it?

(Hustle Belt)  Truthfully I don't really pay much attention to the rating level of a league's officials. Everyone makes the jokes. MAC refs. Big Ten refs. Big East refs. Pac-12 refs. Those darn refs! It could definitely be the final stages of Stockholm Syndrome but in a game where so many calls have to be spur-of-the-moment judgment calls, a lot of them are going to suck and a few may even change the outcome of a game. But nothing major, deadball-wise, has been completely uncalled for, at least what I've seen. That and the ability to replay has certainly mitigated any other potential disasters.


(Bull Run) We're just used to it.

I'm not enough of a hoops wonk to track individual officials so I cant say if it's "the talent pool". But more often than not I just shrug my shoulders are the terrible officiating because, well, that's the MAC.

(I was mostly just curious.  It seems to me that officiating (and its lousy quality) used to be a common source of conversation among MAC fans, and I hardly hear anything anymore.  Maybe the expectations have just been lowered.  I don't find myself as appalled as I used to...but again, maybe that's just a product of no longer expecting anything better.  


I have been thinking about this because the Kent beat reporter tweeted during the BG-Kent game that (paraphrasing) the MAC doesn't get seasoned officials on weekend games.  I thought that was interesting--could the conference be paying less?  It does seem to me that we are getting more and more refs who have hardly worked any games at all.  In fact, BG had a guy working his first college game the other day.  I have this saved for an off-season project.)