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MAC Tournament

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DougHeil said:
I didn't watch the game, but congrats to Akron!

I'm sure they were celebrating big time as they are now going to the big dance. What are the chances they play OSU at the Q if they win on Tuesday or Wednesday? LOL

Anyway; does anyone else find it strange that teams who win their conference tourney are celebrating like they just won the National Title? Teams who were going to be in the dance anyway celebrated a little too over the top. Take UCONN for instance; if you didn't know better, you would think they are the new Champs after that game last night. Geezee. I certainly hope OSU doesn't think they actually won something if they win today.

Again; congrats to the Zips. Here's to hoping they win the first game next week! :cheers:
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It depends...the mid-major and smaller conferences I totally understand. For a team like Akron, winning is the only way to get a ticket to the NCAA Tournament, so there's a ton of excitement. For a lock like OSU winning a conference tournament, maybe not so much.
 
sgm405 said:
It depends...the mid-major and smaller conferences I totally understand. For a team like Akron, winning is the only way to get a ticket to the NCAA Tournament, so there's a ton of excitement. For a lock like OSU winning a conference tournament, maybe not so much.
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Oh yeah, I understand why Akron may celebrate. It's teams who were already in the tourney and who won their conference tourney, and who go overboard like they actually did something is what I don't get. But Akron? Oh hell yeah. Tear up Akron with partying after the game as making the big dance is a damn special thing.
 
sgm405 said:
Kent State has 5 NCAA Tournament appearances. They had a good team in 2000-2001 when they won a 1st round NCAA Tournament game, and had an incredible team in 2001-2002, the year they reached the Elite Eight. They were certainly the "team to beat" in the MAC from 2000-2004.

Akron has now reached the MAC final five straight years, winning twice. This will be their 3rd NCAA Tournament appearance. They have been the "team to beat" from 2007-2011.

Kent State is a very good program, but so is Akron. You just can't say one has a rich history and the other doesn't. After the last three years and tonight's result, I think Akron has proven themselves as the top program in the MAC at this time.
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Has Akron ever been ranked in the top 25?

As far as Dambrot goes, he is going nowhere unless he's fired, and that's not happening. He is a UA grad, his mother was a professor at UA, and his family is deeply rooted in the Akron community. He just signed a two year contract extension in 2009 that added on to a previous five year contract, which runs until 2016. He doesn't want to go to a bigger program, he wants to make Akron a bigger program.
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Don't be so naive. LeBron should have taught you this much.
 
Um...maybe they celebrate because they just won the conference tourney? You don't think Kemba Walker and everyone else on that UConn team wanted to win the toughest conference tourney in the country? Most of these teams such as UConn set many different goals at the beginning of the season, and for most teams the regular season conference championship and conference tournament championship are somewhere in the top 5. It also greatly impacts seeding in the NCAA tournament. UConn added quality wins over Georgetown, Pitt, Syracuse, and Lousville to their resume, all top 20 rpi teams. That type of week could potentially jump them 2-3 seeds in the NCAA tourney.
 
The Optomist said:
Has Akron ever been ranked in the top 25?



Don't be so naive. LeBron should have taught you this much.
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The Optomist said:
Has Akron ever been ranked in the top 25?



Don't be so naive. LeBron should have taught you this much.
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Again, Kent State had one big year, which is the same year you are citing with the being ranked argument. The only other time they were ranked was 2008, and that lasted 5 days, as they lost that ranking when Bowling Green took them down in their next game. Akron has now won the MAC Title two of the last three years and has been in the championship game the past five seasons. They've been the best overall program in the MAC during those last five years.

As for being naive, I thought of your comments as I was at the Akron Selection Show Watch Party. Keith Dambrot grabbed the microphone and talked about how he used to go to UA games when he was a little kid, how he grew up an Akron fan because his mother was a professor there, how he played baseball there and graduated from there...and he talked about how much it meant to take his school and his hometown to new levels. Then he paused a got choked up a little bit...an obviously genuine moment.. He finished by saying how much he loved Akron, how they were going to keep taking this program to higher levels, and how happy he was to be the coach of this program.

I normally just agree to disagree on things out of respect, but you're just flat out wrong if you think he is going anywhere anytime soon, especially considering he passed up other job offers two years ago after winning the MAC Tournament and instead signed an extension to keep him as Akron's coach through 2016. The big difference between Keith Dambrot and LeBron is that Dambrot is about as real and as candid as it gets, and appreciates where he's at.
 
Random trivia: the first NCAA Tournament wins for Ohio (1960) and Bowling Green (1962) were both over Notre Dame. Maybe Akron can follow in their footsteps.

Then again, it's been ten years since a 15-seed took down a 2-seed. (I think Hampton was the last to do it, in 2001, when they beat Iowa State.) But Notre Dame is always a little bit overrated, so we'll see.
 
DougHeil said:
Oh yeah, I understand why Akron may celebrate. It's teams who were already in the tourney and who won their conference tourney, and who go overboard like they actually did something is what I don't get. But Akron? Oh hell yeah. Tear up Akron with partying after the game as making the big dance is a damn special thing.
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In most cases I would agree with you. But in the case of say, Connecticut, they have every right to party it up. Winning five games in five nights, especially the way they won them, is a spectacular accomplishment.
 
Geno had a great team coming back, the smarter move would have seemed to be stay one more year, try to make an NCAA run and get a bigger step up?

That's a head scratcher.
 
My three theories are:
1.) Kent wasnt going to Renew his contract?
2.) Money?
3.) Kent was going to let him go?

All of these seem very unlikely.
 
Chardon said:
My three theories are:
1.) Kent wasnt going to Renew his contract?
2.) Money?
3.) Kent was going to let him go?

All of these seem very unlikely.
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They do have some new facilities coming...I still don't see why he made the jump. I don't even think he's a very good coach...could be a blessing in disguise for Kent.
 
sgm405 said:
They do have some new facilities coming...I still don't see why he made the jump. I don't even think he's a very good coach...could be a blessing in disguise for Kent.
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MONEY! His base salary will be $700,000 with incentives could be worth $900,000. His salary at Kent State was about $300,000.
 
Not only money, but the MVC spends much more money on basketball across the board. The MVC has been a way higher rated conference for some time now (MVC conference rpi was 12 this year, MAC was 20) and has put two teams in the tourney on a relatively consistent basis. Because of their insistence to increase football budgets, MAC basketball is always going to be behind the other mid-majors in terms of the ability to hire and retain good young coaches. MAC teams just can't offer the type of money that it takes to keep coaches, and until they can the MAC will likely remain a one bid league. If you look at the increase in spending over the last 5 years between MAC basketball and football, I believe it is almost 10:1 in favor of football.

Even with that increase in football spending, MAC schools don't even sniff the better non BCS schools. That money is a drop in the bucket. However, if each MAC school committed scheduling mandates and increasing basketball spending by $1 mill over the next 5 years (as they did with football) you would likely see a huge jump in the level of play and probably the return of the multiple bids for the conference.
 
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