The MAC resurgence this year was fueled, mainly, by four really solid mid-major teams. And, due to the new tournament format, it was actually possible that these four best teams would constitute the conference’s final four. And, it all worked out as planned, and now we have a really, really interesting two-day, four-team war about to take place in Cleveland.
J, riding the N. Illinois, C. Michigan, and W. Michigan upsets, has a pretty substantial MAC lead. He actually went one round too far on Toledo or he would have had this bracket done perfectly so far. But, with a huge spread of picks among these last four teams, this conference is still completely up for grabs.
#1 Akron vs. #4 Kent St.
The Akron Zips have been in the MAC championship every year since 2007, despite not having the #1-seed in any of those years (they were only a #2 once). Now, thy finally broke through and won the MAC regular season title, but still have a really tough game to reach an amazing 6th straight title game. Kent St. survived a determined W. Michigan team last night, 76-72 to set up this outstanding semifinal.
This is a pretty important CTC game today, even though it is in a 3x conference. 6 people have Kent St. in the upset here (Dave, Gersh, J, KA, Lil Lohse, Lynch), including Dave and KA, who have Kent winning the tournament. Teddy will lose a game where he picked E. Michigan for the fourth straight round. The other 13 have Akron, but only Bry, Rikey, and Waters have the Zips winning the whole thing.
#2 Buffalo vs. #3 Ohio
In arguably the best season ever for the Buffalo Bulls, they earned themselves one of the two triple-byes given out for the first time this year. The one potential downside to that (that also affects Akron in the early game) is that they haven’t played a game in 6 days. Ohio, who struggled early yesterday with Toledo before turning it on late, got to work off the rust last night before entering this matchup for a shot at the title.
This is another game with pretty major CTC implications. The majority of the field actually has Ohio here, as only 6 people have the Bulls (Bry, Dave, Gross, J, Lil Lohse, Primm). KA has already lost this game with Bowling Green, but the other 13 have Ohio here, with half the field (Alexi, Doogan, Gersh, Lohse, Lynch, Mac, RDoc, RSmith, Scoot, Stri) picking the Bobcats to win the tournament. Gross, Lil Lohse, and Primm are the only three with Buffalo winning the tournament.
