Ball State - Some guy with an old timey name... Elmore I think it is. Has shown some flashes and some real skill, always seems to be battling injuries.

Western Mich - Hudson Ward. 6'7" SF. Canadian. Started out at Penn State. His high school stats were video game numbers.

Toledo - Austin Parks. Former 4 Star. Was a Top 25 C in the country out of HS. Didn't play much at Ohio State. He's a big ol' boy. 6'10" "250". (They also got a 7 foot freshman coming in)

Toledo - Kyler Vanderjagt. 6"4" SG. 11 points for CMU last season.

Akron - Evan Mahaffey. Akron always seems to land these guys. Averaged 18 mins at Ohio State. 3 points, 3 rebounds is nothing crazy, but he's a 6'6" guard and I don't think he missed a single game in the last two seasons. Played in all 32 games last season. All 35 games the year before.

Kent State - Rayvon Griffith. 6"7" SG from Cincy. 4 star recruit rated 92. 64th ranked recruit nationally by 247. 83 by ESPN. https://www.espn.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting...

Keeping an eye on transfers Justin Thomas at Bowling Green (Florida State and Milwaukee) and Rob Whaley at Kent State (UNLV). Whaley in particular had great per 40 min numbers in Vegas, but he is dealing with a back injury that sidelined him all but two games last year.

I think UMass is the wildcard for the entire league. Interestingly, most MAC comments seem to have a higher opinion of them than they have for themselves, based on comments from their fan board.

https://www.umasshoops.com/newboard/viewforum.php?f=1

However, I think some of that is based on the fact many UMass fans are not thrilled - yet- to be in the MAC.

Just based on roster size and composition, plus a proven head coach, just tough to see this team lower than 4th in the MAC. At the same time, not ready to say they are a true contender yet, either.

That will be more evident by Christmas.

ALSO ... I believe the UMASS MAC schedule will be interesting as well. Who will they play the last 10 games of the season? If they play 5 or more of NIU, EMU, CMU, WMU, BSU, UB, that will certainly prop them up.

Conversely, if the last 10 have 5 or more of Ohio, Toledo, Miami, Akron, Kent, BG, that will be a 'MAC Tournament' test as well.

Temple fans heads were full of owl poop. UMass fans, for the most part, have their brains intact. Big difference. UMass will be a contender, if not the favorite, right out of the chute.

That's oddly specific

That and maybe just having some fun with a certain repetitive, obnoxious poster who has taken over the board.

I'll give you a hint: he's upset that Boals is the highest paid coach in the league, the AD is given a "hall pass" (he doesn't know what this phrase means) for repeated blunders, is blatantly sexist with regards to the AD, and BillyTheCat endorses the posts pretty consistently.

Not secret, but definitely, no media release. That is an actual fact. Like it or not, and that has nothing to do with male or female, because we’ve had other AD’s do the same thing. More like being in a media vacuum

You wanna put in that effort?

I'm not even sure we actually know the details of Boals new contract. Which is just bizarre. I'm a Boals guy. I don't really care what they're paying him, presumably it's still that 590 ish number available online with the rest of OU's salaries, but years? Groce is tied to Akron into 2030 for at least, 650 base. Even if he has an easy out - I'd like to know he's atleast locked in to 2027 or something.

I think the latest guy to get a new contract is Senderoff, and I think that was for $500,000 a year.

Considering both Boals and Groce were well above that already, and quite likely Steele is in that neighborhood as well as Martin at UMass that makes about half the league at $500,000 per and up. And TK at Toledo is probably in this group as well.

Personally speaking, I don't think any of these guys are earning their pay. I'd rank them like this:

TK -- At least he sits at the top of the league, most years and always has quality guard play.

Senderoff -- Gets more out of less (facilities, talent, pay) and schedules up more than most. But MAC record not as good as it could be.

Boals -- Won with inherited talent, has been so-so since with arguably top facility in the league. Seldom a challenging non-con schedule.

Groce -- Great getting to post season. Wins w/average facilities. Another seldom challenging non-con schedule. Loses fair share of transfers for level of success.

Others -- Steele-Martin have past success and judged incomplete in the MAC.

looking at this its apparent that boals is doing okay but could be doing much better. to start he has to get more ambitious with recruiting. he needs to go after bigger stronger players who can rebound and protect the rim better. secondly an uptempo pressure defense style is recommended. most if not all mac teams aren,t able to handle teams who play that way. a tougher non conference schedule is a must too. they should be playing teams like indiana, duke, kansas and michigan state. they may not be able to win games like that but to play tough games like that will make the team better. and jeff could talk to the coaches and seek advice on how to better develop his players. its a mystery that jeff boals uses the excuse that none of those teams are willing to play us. coaches like hunter and oshea never did that. they just went and scheduled games. in 2007 tim had ou playing maryland and kansas on the road. they won at maryland but not so well against a fully loaded 1990 UNLV like team in kansas. larry hunter had ou playing ucla at thier place one year. he also had then playing north carolina at north carolina too. they actually won that one and carolina had some solid players on that team. its clear boals needs to make a few changes

He’d be wasting his talents working in the MAC. Needs to be on staff at Duke or UNC in the player development department.