Bobcat Attack - Ohio Basketball - Geno to Bradley...

Ohio Basketball Topic

Topic: Geno to Bradley...

Page: 7 of 7

Alan Swank

General User

Member Since: 12/11/2004

Location: Athens, OH

Post Count: 7,387

mail

Alan Swank

mail

Posted: 3/31/2011 8:51 PM

LoganElm_grad09 wrote:expand_more

Casper71 wrote:expand_more

I would argue wehave not seen the success everyone would like to see in athletics and IMHO it is because we are in the MAC...period. We have a Big 10 basketball arena but are obviously not Big 10 caliber. We have an ex-Big 12 football coach but again we are obviously not at that level either.

One of the consistent facors I see over all the years (even with the money spent and coaches coming and going) is we are still in the same neighborhood and play with the same friends we played with 50 years ago. And, most all of the friends we have added since the 70s have been at or near the bottom of the standings much of the time (read EMU). The neighborhood is deteriorating and not getting better. You wonder why we are sinking with the rest of them? Try something new and stop repeating the same errors over and over again.

Growing up, my mother always told me "You are judged by the company you keep". I think this is true in our case; having EMU and Akron in football and Toledo in basketball is a big problem as far as national perception of the MAC works.

But there's only one problem with the logic. We are not the cream of the crop in the MAC, and to bolt to an even STRONGER conference, well we'd look like Marshall. I don't think leaving the MAC is the answer at this point. Until we prove we're deserving of "worthier" foes, we gotta beat the ones we have at the current time.

Uh, last I checked Akron won a MAC championship more recently than we have.

Last Edited: 3/31/2011 8:52:16 PM by Alan Swank

DublinCat

General User

Member Since: 12/20/2004

Post Count: 236

mail

DublinCat

mail

Posted: 3/31/2011 9:10 PM

UCONN went from a mediocre IAA team to a BCS Bowl team in a single decade. Likewise; Fordham moved up to the A-10 in similar fashion. There are others. It seems to have more to do with institutional commitment and media market than previous team success.

OU87

OUVan

General User

Member Since: 12/20/2004

Location: Bethesda, MD

Post Count: 5,580

mail

OUVan

mail

Posted: 4/1/2011 1:04 PM

LoganElm_grad09 wrote:expand_more

We aren't the cream of the MAC but we aren't part of the problem either. The problem is that we have several teams that completely drag the league down. As someone posted earlier if the East was considered as a basketball conference on it's own we are somewhere around 11 and 12. Throw the West into the equation and we were historically bad. Then on the other side of the coin, we haven't had that one truly dominant program to help carry the conference on it's shoulders. Kent had a good two year run as a great team in the early 2000s but has only been good since. CMU in 2003 was the last dominant MAC team. The great results haven't been there for us but at least we are much more committed to being stronger than several of our league-mates.

So while you are correct that we don't need to bolt to a stronger conference, we need to be part of a stronger conference. The MAC needs to lay down the law like the MVC did several years ago. Another possible solution is to leave and form a new conference made up of like-minded MAC teams plus a number of other nearby candidates.