MAC's men's basketball record vs top 100 teams:

5-38

4 of the wins are against the MAC's own Akron
MAC's only win over a top 100 non-MAC team is Ohio over Georgia Tech

ouch

I am guessing you used RPI? KenPom has it a bit different at 3-25.

This is with Akron outside of the top 100. It includes Ohio over Georgia Tech, Kent State over Texas and Toledo over Loyola Chicago.

Still very bad.

+1000^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I'm just a much bigger basketball fan, than college football fan. I'd rather OHIO go to the sweet 16 than make it to a major bowl game. You make it that far in hoops, you still can dream of a national championship. In football, OHIO plays in the Orange Bowl and you still have no hope of playing for a title. MAC needs to re-address a ton when it comes to hoops.

Good points Jeff. I just think we can all agree, regardless of stats and numbers, the quality of play in 2016-2017 has been some of the worst we have ever seen in this league from top to bottom.

Jeff, I think it's safe to say that college basketball on the whole has seen a drop in caliber of play outside of the power 6 schools. Some of that can be attributed to conference realignment. But again, I think a lot of that has to do with the 1-and-done nature of the game right now. The A-10 of today looks like the MAC did a decade ago. The MAC of today looks like the SWAC of a decade ago. The SWAC of today looks like NAIA/D2 of a decade ago.

Some of that could also be the science of recruiting, and/or the sheer volume of exposure from AAU circuits and basketball camps.

So relatively the MAC could still be the 12th best conference, while still seeing a precipitous drop in caliber of play.

I think you're really going to start seeing these trends play out in # of at-large and total NCAA bids as well. The MAC was never a lock for multiple bids, but on good years we'd usually have a 2nd (or sometimes even a 3rd) team at least in the conversation, and could get an at-large every handful or so years. Last time that happened was what, 1999? We are officially a 1-and-done conference, no different than the SWAC used to be.

And what is the trickle-up effect? Well how many conferences are realistically locks to get multiple bids? ACC, Big XII, Big East, Big Ten, SEC, Pac 12. Your power 6 are fine.

Then the "next tier" (of which the MAC used to be included IMO) American (will get ~3), Atlantic 10 (will get 2-3), MVC (2), Mtn West (2), WCC (2) - and that's about it. More of your "power" mid-majors, or high mid-majors - whatever you want to call them. Definitely a tier above the other mids at this point.

Next tier of traditional mid-majors would be Conference USA, Colonial, MAC, Horizon, Sun Belt, WAC. All of these conferences are "down" IMO and are all now essentially 1-bid conferences. At the end of the day, no different from all the rest of the bottom 15ish low major conferences.

I like that article but it highlights one of the flaws in the NCAA that persists...teams not coming out of their own homes and the tendency of stripes to favor the home team when their metrics on fouls, techs and turnovers resulting in home court wins.

This paragraph
"Every state-of-the-art power rating now makes a home-court adjustment, so a new, composite ranking could easily calibrate the strength of a team’s opponent to include a difficulty boost if the game was played on the road and a downgrade if it came at home. This kind of modification would instantly affect which bubble teams make it into the tournament and could even change schools’ scheduling habits in future seasons"

shows they recognize the parameter but does not address it by requiring Duke'/tO$U/P5 schools to come out and play on the road. AS usual I still call for expansion to 128 giving the regular season champs and the tourney winner from the non P5 conferences a shot. 341 schools and looking back 60 years you see the same names over and over. With the payout to the MAC being based on Akron's one game appearances while multi team conferences with teams advancing and getting multi year payouts split among conference members it is little wonder the arms race goes to the P5. It is a stacked deck. Don't have many answers for this one but it is a bit depressing really.

KenPom and others meeting to discuss how to put it together is a good thing because RPI alone is not sufficient. Shaus is in the room the last 2 years. A good basketball mind. Should have a better insight as to how to get this program to the next level. Should be a voice for the mids