{"id":2561,"date":"2012-03-05T19:18:15","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T23:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=2561"},"modified":"2012-03-05T18:18:35","modified_gmt":"2012-03-05T22:18:35","slug":"ctc-day-eight-preview-the-new-look-mac-a-welcome-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=2561","title":{"rendered":"CTC Day Eight Preview: The New-Look MAC…A Welcome Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been a pretty loud opponent of the two division, 12-team tournament bracket.\u00a0 And, the MAC was the poster-child for its injustice, as the Eastern Division is so far superior to the West that it presented a grossly unfair advantage for some and a huge disadvantage to others.\u00a0 Well, they changed (maybe they read\u00a0my post<\/a>\u00a0about a month ago…or the idiot blogger that wrote that didn’t do his research…), and what they came up with was genius.\u00a0 They took the double-bye concept employed by 8-team tournaments, such as the OVC, and extrapolated it to their own 12-team tournament.\u00a0 So, for the first time ever, the MAC will have a six-round tournament, complete with double-byes and triple-byes to accompany a First Round quadruple-header tonight.\u00a0 The four winners tonight will make up the Second Round on Wednesday, where those winners will be joined on Thursday by the 3- and 4-seeds in the quarters.\u00a0 The semis will be Friday, when the top two seeds enter the mix, followed by the championship on Saturday.\u00a0 Awesome!\u00a0 MAC, I applaud you…<\/p>\n

This year’s MAC\u00a0picks are absolutely all over the place, which should make for a fascinating tournament, from the CTC standpoint.\u00a0 More people picked the 3-seed to win the tournament (despite having to play an extra round) than the 1- and 2-seeds, combined!\u00a0 Doogan has won three of the four MAC tournaments on record.\u00a0 The only one he didn’t was won by Teddy in 2010…see below – it was amazing.<\/p>\n

Championship Picks<\/em>
\n3 for #1 Akron (Bry, Rikey, Waters)
\n4 for #2 Buffalo (Gross, J, Lil Lohse, Primm)
\n8 for #3 Ohio
\n2 for #3 Kent St. (Dave, KA)
\n1 for #5 E. Michigan (Teddy)<\/p>\n

Biggest Upset
\n<\/em>R1 – #12 N. Illinois (Bry, Doogan, Gross, J, Mac, RDoc)
\nR2 – #10 Miami (OH) (Scoot, Waters)
\nQF – #7 Toledo (Gross, J)
\nSF – #6 Bowling Green (KA)<\/p>\n

Previous CTC Champions<\/em>
\n2011 – Doogan\/J
\n2010 – Teddy* (in the most unbelievably ridiculous individual CTC bracket ever filled out – do yourself a favor and look at this bracket<\/a>\u00a0and marvel at someone picking it perfectly)
\n2009 – Doogan
\n2008 – Doogan<\/p>\n

#5 Eastern\u00a0Michigan vs. #12 N. Illinois<\/em>
\nNIU\u00a0is really bad every single year, and I honestly do not know why.\u00a0 They should be great.\u00a0 They are a good school with decent facilities in the shadow of one of the best basketball cities in the country.\u00a0 Oh, and did I mention that the big boys like Northwestern and Illinois often have trouble recruiting Chicago kids?\u00a0 So, why can’t NIU ever field a competitive team?\u00a0 I don’t get it.\u00a0 Their opponent tonight, E. Michigan is always decent, but their conference record this year might be a bit inflated by their unbalanced schedule being so easy (they get to play the Western Division teams twice).\u00a0 Fortunately for them, though, they get one of those Western teams in the First Round and are guaranteed to get another one in the Second Round if they get there.\u00a0 6 people\u00a0(Bry, Doogan, Gross, J, Mac, RDoc) went for the huge upset pick of NIU.\u00a0 Teddy has everything at stake here, as he has EMU winning 6 games to cut down the nets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

#6 Bowling Green vs. #11 Central Michigan<\/em>
\nBowling Green had a really nice year, but fell victim to the unbalanced schedule and ended up 6th.\u00a0 C. Michigan is not very good.\u00a0 J and Primm are the only two with CMU in the big upset here.\u00a0 KA has the most at stake with Bowling Green, as she has them in the finals.<\/p>\n

#7 Toledo vs. #10 Miami (OH)<\/em>
\nMiami (OH) is the black sheep of the Eastern Division because they weren’t all that good this year.\u00a0 Toledo, generally a total doormat in this league, has actually played really well down the stretch and might be a tough out.\u00a0 This game is rather split and could be somewhat important.\u00a0 7 people have Miami in the upset (Bry, Dave, Gersh, Lynch, RDoc, Scoot, Waters).\u00a0 Waters and Scoot have them going to the semis.\u00a0 Gross and J have Toledo in the semis.<\/p>\n

#8 Western Michigan vs. #9 Ball St.
\n<\/em>Ball St. started MAC play red-hot, but has cooled off mightily down the stretch and fell to #9.\u00a0 WMU was supposed to have a terrific, senior-laden team this year, so they put together a ridiculous non-conference schedule and lost most of their non-con games.\u00a0 I guess losing bred more losing at WMU, as they didn’t turn it around in conference play and now enter as a longshot to even compete in this tournament.\u00a0 This game is rather split, as well, as 9 people went for the minor upset of Ball St. (Doogan, Gersh, KA, Lil Lohse, Lohse, Primm, Rikey, Scoot, Waters).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been a pretty loud opponent of the two division, 12-team tournament bracket.\u00a0 And, the MAC was the poster-child for its injustice, as the Eastern Division is so far superior to the West that it presented a grossly unfair … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[479,483],"tags":[1261],"class_list":["post-2561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conf-tourney-challenge","category-conference-tourney-challenge","tag-ctc-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2564,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions\/2564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}