Can't believe I just realized the conference this year is giving a double-bye in MAC Tournament to Division winners. What a great idea! Anything that puts more importance on the regular season is good by me.

Technically, the 3 and 4 seeds get a double bye, and the 1 and 2 get a TRIPLE bye. 

Seeds 5-12 meet in the first round, the winners of those play in the second round.  Those winners feed in to play 3 and 4 in the quarters, then 1 and 2 come in after that in the semis.

http://www.utrockets.com//pdf8/780798.pdf

Also, it looks like the "MAC West gets a 2 seed they didn't earn by default" is done.  All articles regarding the change say it's now "regardless of division", so basically the divisions only matter in terms of scheduling (like it is with basically every other conference).

That is huge because going back several years now the top 2 overall MAC records are out of the East and in some years as many as the top 4. I totally can see Ohio taking advantage of the new format this season with a top 4 record.

Another good reason to get rid of the divisions.  If a division champ isn't guaranteed a top 2 or even 4 seed, why bother having divisions?  They're not needed for scheduling, and in fact there would be more flexibility in scheduling without them.

Interesting ... I get the motivation behind this....but really liked having the four games on Thursday...made for a fun day of basketball...one of the first years cleveland hosted, all four games were decided by a total of about 11 points, Ohio won over Kent when Kent tried to call timeout and they were out. best day of basketball I've seen

Day attendance on Thursday was always scant. If you push it to a night-only session, it could be decent.