Wonder if the borrowed it from me?

http://www.bobcatattack.com/messageboard/topic.asp?FromPa...

I can actually see Balls as being the leader in the clubhouse with Eastern right behind and possibly Western now. Balls has Kipway, Tyler, Persons and the big guy. Eastern has the Player of the Year in Thompson (2018) and Western has Wilder coming back. I think we can be there if some guys develop (Jordy off the dribble, Block outside shooting and Doug inside) but even Kent has a great backcourt with Walker and Avery back who helped lead them to an NCAA Tourney.

I could see the top seed next year in the MAC Tournament being 11-7.

Well played!

So who is the best point guard in the east?

Jalen Avery from Kent and Wes Clark (the Missouri transfer) from Buffalo are set in place.

12 minutes elapsed after I said "quick." That's not quick. Point being, there's not a ton of returning talent in the East.

I'm implying your sense of humor is broken.

Buffalo in the EAST

The problem with MAC Basketball is when we reached the crossroads of football or basketball, we chose the path that is toughest to make up ground. I wish luck to any program bringing a football program up to D-1 in this world we're in.

A while back, I posted about a fellow work colleague who told me several years ago an interesting MAC factoid. This gentleman was a former MAC coach and sat on the board of a MAC school. He told me that in the mid-late 90s the successful stature of MAC basketball had the football coaches feeling like they were doomed. The football coaches pleaded for more money i.e coaches salaries especially assistants, since too many quality assistants were going back to the high school level where they could actually support their families with a decent salary! (How times have changed!)

I haven't seen this gentleman in five years since his retirement. However, he did leave me with an interesting thought. He was witnessing the rise of MAC sports on cable TV and though happy warned that we could never win the arms race against the big time conferences. He warned that we could get to a point where we might seem close to enough to grab the ring only to lose ground, much like that carnival ride (the name escapes me) where kids and adults try to push their compartment car over the top. Sadly, most fall just short and end up taking a big drop backward.

Though I am an optimist at heart, I do worry that every time we get close someone takes our players and coaches i.e Jaaron and PJ Fleck, who would have been the MAC's first Million Dollar Man, but Minnesota scooped him away as well as many of his assistants and vaunted recruits!

Not only are our schools not willing to take that step they are moving in the opposite direction.

The MAC is paid a handsome sum for the most part to participate as one of 120ish schools in FBS FB. Why would they want to walk away from that in order to not get paid to be one of 350ish schools in D1 BB? (asking for a friend)

And to your point, we already spend more than St. Mary's, who you cite above, so is FB really a problem?

122) Ohio University-Main Campus 3,101,150
123) University of Akron Main Campus 3,088,920
124) Siena College 3,083,128
125) New Mexico State University-Main Campus 3,003,045
126) Saint Mary's College of California 2,956,340

Outside of Akron, we spend 33% to 100% more than our MAC brethren, so is our perceived lack of spending on MBB really standing in the way of our success, or are we failing to maximize our performance versus our spend in MBB?

Do you have evidence/data that proves that Men's Basketball is a more valuable marketing investment than FB? OHIO spends in the middle of the MAC in FB budget, and in the lower third in FBS, yet we seem to always find ourselves on television seven to ten times a year, so relatively speaking, isn't that a valuable use of marketing funds?