MAC Men's Out of Conference Hoops Report

You would not necessarily know it by looking in the stands, but we are seeing a slight resurgence in MAC basketball over the past few years.  A couple years, the MAC ranked #17 in RPI, and this year is #12, which is where they were last year.

The MAC had its best success in a long time against non-conference D1 competition this year.  In recent years, the record has ranked in the mid-40s or so.  Last year, it popped up to 55% and this year was 60%.  Now, without any hard numbers to back it up, my impression is that this year's non-conference schedule was not as taxing as last years--the top MAC win by RPI was Akron over South Carolina, which is #80,  Even if the schedule was weaker, the MAC held its position and if the position you are holding is #12, that's OK

BG had the 2nd biggest--over Wright State with an RPI of 99--but also had the worst loss.  BG was the only team to lose to a non-D1 opponent.

Below are the D1 conference ranked by their current RPI and the MAC's record against them.  The MAC has four wins over top four conferences.  The Big East win was Ohio over a weak DePaul team, the SEC win was South Carolina, and the Big Ten wins were Eastern over UM and CMU over Northwestern.  I'm going to do a reset on the MAC teams before the season starts Tuesday, but both EMU and CMU have Big 10 wins and both also have multiple non D1 wins, as well.

Notable below are the MAC's winning records against the West Coast Conference and especially the Missouri Valley.  The big lead over the Horizon is appropriate and as you move down the rankings, you start to see consistent undefeated records for the MAC, which is also as it should be.  The 3 OVC losses are to Belmont (OU) and two to EIU (NIU and Ball), so that's a loss to a good team and two of the MAC's weaker teams.  I'm sure no one is happy with the 3 losses to C-USA either.  The Atlantic Sun loss was OU to Florida Gulf Coast.

Anyway, love the MAC regular season and looking forward to getting it started.  I think that men's basketball is considerably stronger than its low point a couple years ago.  The conference lacks the big stars that it had back in the 80s and 90s, but the quality of basketball is better.

1 Big 12 (0-1)
2 Big East (1-1)
3 Southeastern (1-1)
4 Big Ten (2-8)
5 Atlantic Coast (0-4)
6 Pacific-12 (1-2)
7 Atlantic 10 (0-7)
8 American Athletic (1-0)
9 West Coast (2-1)
10 Missouri Valley (5-4)
11 Mountain West (1-1)
12 Mid-American
13 Independents ----
14 Big West (1-1)
15 Horizon League (10-4)
16 Ivy League (1-2)
17 Patriot League (1-0)
18 Colonial Athletic (2-3)
19 Conference USA (1-3)
20 Northeast (3-0)
21 Southland (2-0)
22 Metro Atlantic Athletic (2-0)
23 Southern (1-0)
24 Sun Belt (4-0)
25 America East (5-0)
26 Ohio Valley (2-3)
27 Summit (3-3)
28 Big Sky (3-0)
29 Big South (4-0)
30 Southwestern Athletic (8-0)
31 Atlantic Sun (2-1)
32 Western Athletic (6-0)
33 Mid-Eastern (5-0)