MAC Blogger Roundtable....

So the finale of the MAC Blogger Roundtable is here.  We've had a pretty good year.  Very energetic football blogging, and the basketball effort was a modified success.  We don't have as many blogs covering basketball, and we went with every two weeks...football has such a solid routine (at least until November) that I think it was a little easier. We got answers this week from Eagle Totem and Bull Run.

1. OU has won the MAC’s automatic bid. What do you think? Did the best team win? What are their chances of making a run in the tourney, especially coming out of a lower seed?

EMUJeremy and Ken Bailey from Eagle Totem think OU has a shot against Michigan.  Tim at Bull Run doesn't see it.  For my part, I have OU making the Sweet Sixteen in most of my brackets.  I definitely think Michigan is overrated and ill-suited to tournament basketball.

2. Akron was dominant for so much of the season and then went 3-4 from the BracketBuster in. What happened?

EMUJeremy says they relied too much on Zeke Marshall, who he feels is overrated, and CMAdler disputes the premise, says the OU game was close and they didn't play that poorly down the stretch.  Bull Run says that OU was hot, Buffalo had the number and everyone in the MAC played badly in the bracket buster.  I wrote the question, so, that partly answers it.  I was surprised they were so dominant all year and played so poorly.  I think teams with depth are tough to beat because they aren't reliant on one guy.

3. Well, we debated it all year, now we can review it directly. What did you think of the MAC tournament format? Did it work? Should they keep it?

CMAdler hates it.  "Suck, suck, suck."  He said it worked very poorly for the women, and for the men, he thinks if you have divisions they should mean something, and you shouldn't have divisions.  EMUJeremy also hated it, but feels it actually disadvantages the top 2 seeds with a long layoff.  He agrees that a #2 seed for EMU would have been unjust.  Bull Run says we should keep it, and I agree.  The extra days off are actually a huge advantage for this time of the season.  I do think we should ditch divisions because it will make the scheduling more even, but I like the format because it creates additional meaning to the regular season.

4. Are there any coaches in the MAC you think won’t be back, either because they’re moving up or moving out?

Events somewhat overtook this one, so I will give everyone a pass on their predictions about Ernie Ziegler.  Everyone seems to agree Taylor is in hot water but probably gets another year and Groce is a candidate to move up.

5. The last I looked, the MAC was the 20th ranked conference. Give your State of the MAC address. Is basketball improving? Is it where it should be? What can make it better4?

For this one, I am running the responses verbatim because I think it is interesting.

Ken:

I remember the days where the MAC was starting to get two teams in the NCAA tournament. So I would say until the MAC gets back to that, basketball isn’t where it should be.

emujeremy:

The MAC still plays an entertaining brand of basketball, but it seems to have been surpassed by others over the last decade. There was a time when the MAC ranked higher than the Missouri Valley and West Coast Conference. Those days are long over. An easy argument can be made that the Colonial has also surpassed the MAC. Right now the MAC is fending off the Horizon League, I’d say top to bottom the MAC is still better but obviously no team in the MAC has come close to the success of Butler. Ray McCallum could have Detroit going strong as well, especially as they build on this years success and bring in Juwan Howard Jr. next year. A player who left the MAC for U of D…

Bull Run:

No, really the MAC should be shooting for a top 15 conference. That's where you start to hit safe double bid territory and its the only goal which is both realistic yet yields Tangible Benefits.
It seems to me Hoops is improving over what it was a couple of years ago but there is a ton of PR damage control that needs to be addressed. The perception of the MAC, both by fans and critics, is a bit worse than the reality of the MAC. Until that perception changes deserving MAC teams will get snubbed (not that we have a deserving at large bid this year, but Akron was close).
The new format is a start. Both the tournament and revenue sharing are good motivators for conference teams to get their act together (Im looking at you MAC West). The other thing we need is for MAC teams to start beating top 50 programs more regularly. You don't have to go into the dome and knock off the orange but the top MAC teams need to knock off top 50 teams at least half the time if they actually want to be seen as top 50 teams.

And, for my part, I believe:

I, like Ken, remember when the MAC was a peer of the MVC and a thinking man's basketball conference.  Conference play remains very exciting.  We are nowhere near being a two-bid league  however, and no MAC team was even close to the bubble this year.  To me, the decision 10 years ago to "save" I-A football in the MAC has diverted resources away from MAC Basketball and signaled the start of this decline.  I think there were really only four quality teams in the MAC this year, and really, not even one marquee player.  Good players, yes, but no national level stars.