Injuries happen to all teams. Yes, it hit us harder than most in the conference. The one guy we couldn’t afford to lose at any point this year was Captain Chaos. It was a position where Boals failed to have depth with his roster construction. I find it hard to believe that anyone on this coaching staff felt Evans could give this team 10-15 minutes per game his freshman year when they signed him. The inability of Ben Nicol not being ready to play as a redshirt sophomore was atrocious and hurt this team’s depth immensely when the injuries piled up.

Boals mismanaged the roster construction and if he hasn’t learned anything from the last two years, then he should be feeling the seat getting warm. He’s the highest paid coach in the league and the results after six seasons don’t warrant the salary. 11-1 Tod K is his daddy…Groce (aka Mr. March) is in another stratosphere…and Steele has resurrected Miami hoops and they are a massive problem moving forward. There should be a clause in Boals contract if he doesn’t get out of the MAC Quaterfinals he gives back 100k to the 1804 NIL collective. We know that will never happen.

It’s onto portal season. There should be at least three current players on scholarship looking for a fresh start elsewhere. At least I hope so. If not, Boals needs to lead them there immediately. The world of college athletics sucks and these are now one-year contracts. A team can go from worst to first with a total roster reconstruction overhaul through the portal. This staff has a lot of work to do.

Fully ready to never discuss the 2024-2025 season again.

The whole though process, "next man up", in actual evaluation of a season drive me nuts. Sure, coaches, MUST say that to keep a team playing as hard as it can. But no sane GM or AD is going to think like that. Injuries matter and are often just bad luck. I think after a very unlucky start injury wise, our football team got very lucky injury wise over the last 8 or 9 games and that was part of the reason why we finally got a MACC.

There is no doubt that this team was hurt by injuries more that most. But this was a flawed team to begin with. It was never going 26-6 with the best of injury luck. The lack of size everywhere was a problem. I don't look as this team where they were probably in the 95th percentile in terms of injuries like has happened to the women several times recently. This was probably more like a 80th percentile injury season and that was far from the whole story on the disappointment

If I were to Tier MAC Programs going into 2025-26:

Tier 1

Akron
Miami
Umass???

Tier 3
Ohio
Toledo
Kent
EMU???

Tier 4
WMU
CMU
BSU
BG

Tier 5
NIU
Buffalo

Note: There is no Tier 2 because all the Tier 1 teams are putting quality $$$ into their NIL/Programs and the rest of the MAC is not.

Tier 3 teams all have quality coaches (EMU???) who can get more out of less, but in the long haul likely can't match Tier 1 teams when it counts (MAC Tournament).

Tier 4 and Tier 5 teams are either coach and/or talent deficient, or (CMU) more of a travel/AAU team with talent than a MAC team.

Tier 3 teams can get lucky with a Portal recruit from time to time, but it will be short-lived and hard to replicate regularly.

To be a Tier 1 team you must (A) have a proven program with a proven identity (B) have at least MAC-Average NIL, (C) have a proven head coach and (D) be true to 'A' no matter what the rest of the league does.

That's my opinion.

I remember back when almost all the MAC was caught up in the 'motion offense' craze. Every game looked the same. But the MAC changed for the better when Majerus stepped in at Ball State, then Marshall came in with it's athleticism, and Kent stepped up with its more defensive style. Suddenly the league became a whole lot different. Matchups became tougher. Officials couldn't just take games off.

I'm afraid, after what Akron and Miami did this season (shooting almost 50-percent of their field goals from 3) the copycats will come out of the woodwork. Hopefully, the better coaches stick to their identity and recruit better players to it.

We'll see.

UMass?

As stated elsewhere, I am not down on pinning everything on injuries. It was really only 2 injuries, Reef in the 1st half and Hadaway in the 2nd. Clayton/Brown/James were each just 3 games I believe. This just does not seem like a crazy high amount of absences to me and with a 9 man rotation, you should be able to survive.

Not necessarily. I can't think of a more offensively challenged big-time team than Michigan St., yet I'll be surprised if they don't make the Elite 8. They can't shoot 3s and I don't think they hit 50% of their other shots. But they defend the crap out of you on defense. They bloody and bruise you on the boards. It's the Izzo way. If they had any offensive capabilities at all, they'd win the whole thing. Hitting three-pointers certainly help, but if you can't play defense you'll be at a disadvantage...unless you're playing another team that can't defend either.

Missed games, but how healthy and effective were they when they came back?

You'd rather them get a lay up than take a wide open 3? Just making sure I read that right. Stop ball. That's the foundation of defense in this game.

Look at that, you almost made an entire post without criticizing Pavs. You're getting there. Maybe the next one.

I almost get what you're saying. But actually, I think you kind of just made up your mind too early and didn't notice what he became this season.

Not sure what rate stats you're looking at, but here's where Pavs ranked in a bunch of advanced stats:

TS% - 4th
Free Throw Rate -- 3rd (2nd amongst guys actually in the rotation)
Rebound rate -- 7th (best guard aside from Elliott, and his rebound rate was basically identical to Evans)
Assist Rate - 1st (by a massive margin)
Usage -- 2nd
Offensive Win Shares -- Tied 1
WS/40 - 5th
Box Plus/Minus - 5th

But the thing is that Pavs basically had two seasons. He was straight up bad in during non-conference play. He averaged 11.9 pts, 5.9 assists, and 4.3 rebounds shooting 42% from the field, 31% from 3, 45% from 2, and an eFG rate of .453.

But in conference play, he was much, much better: shot 57% from the field, 63% from 2, 33% from three, 60% efg, and averaged 15 pts, 4.1 assists, 4 rebounds.

100% on all. A redshirt sophomore unable to contribute is a complete whiff. Nobody is expecting to challenge for a national championship but competing in our league is a more than reasonable expectation.

The team made Cleveland with a decent 5 seed and wins over #1 Akron and #2 Miami down the stretch. I would say that is competitive enough but barely.