It's MAC Season

[69MG]

Our NET should skyrocket today. Albany, Charleston and Green Bay all won last night.

[Juice Stand]

I know you're joking, but Warren Nolan has a pretty neat section on his site that shows how games will impact us in the RPI SoS. I know we all use NET and Kenpom at this point, but the ratings are starting to level out at this point in the season and RPI is still useful. We're 171 NET, 161 KenPom, 166 RPI. Tonight's impact game is CCSU hosting Fairfield. If CCSU wins it will give us a 25 point RPI boost in strength of schedule only, not in overall RPI.

Silly, not important, I know. But it's fun to look at this stuff when we don't have a game going on.
https://www.warrennolan.com/basketball/ ... team=UMass

[inthescoop]

^That's a cool site right there, thanks for sharing.

[69MG]

I look at Nolan a lot. He likes us, having us going 22-7 and 14-4 in conference. He doesn't count the UMass-Boston game and has no prediction on the unknown SBC game. I would be thrilled if he's right.

[bobolink]

Our NET should skyrocket today. Albany, Charleston and Green Bay all won last night.

oh, for those good old days when opponent's records mattered a lot. hey, maybe those days will come again.

[MikeUMA]

UM ranks 2nd among MAC MBB in best jobs
https://www.on3.com/sites/field-of-68/n ... -rankings/

[Juice Stand]

UM ranks 2nd among MAC MBB in best jobs
https://www.on3.com/sites/field-of-68/n ... -rankings/

Doing less with more. Gotta love that...

[Juice Stand]

So we're out of last place, I guess that's an achievement. As we look to start climbing the ladder to get in the top 8 for the conference tournament, we're in 11th right now and the two teams in front of us are our next two opponents. This is a big week that we need to take advantage of. Tuesday is 9th place Western (244 KP, 249 NET), and Saturday is 10th No. Illinois (321 KP, 322 NET).

They're both road games so they aren't gimmes, and we've obviously been struggling, but these are two winnable games. Take a loss and we're in serious jeopardy of missing the tournament. Lose both and we can basically shut the season down.

[vanmeter]

Mens Basketball net 195 (9th out of 13 in mac)
Womens Basketball Net 83 (2nd out of 13 in mac)

[MikeUMA]

The mid-week games are done. Looking at the standings, UM is currently in 9th place. That's still in DNQ territory for the MAC Tourney.

Bowling Green is a half game ahead of us in the 8th spot. That one we shanked against them on the 3rd hurts.

Gotta get the W at Northern Illinois (1-4, tied for 10th) this weekend before we go on a three-game stretch against teams ahead of us
1/20 Toledo (4-1, 3-way tie for 2nd)
1/23 at Buffalo (3-2, 6th)
1/27 at Miami (6-0, 1st)

[inthescoop]

Watching Ohio vs Ball State right now and honestly it’s atrocious basketball. Still shocked we started 0-3 playing against low tier MAC competition. MAC refs are worse than high school refs. Damn I do miss some A10 basketball. But.. but… football.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

MAC bball generally stinks. 99.9% of people here would agree with that.

With that said, we haven't been setting the world ablaze in the last decade either.

[minutefanjsf]

MAC bball generally stinks. 99.9% of people here would agree with that.

With that said, we haven't been setting the world ablaze in the last decade either.

Current MAC style likely has a better chance than A10 on the national level, IMO. It's not a big disparity. It's Big Ten light even in hoops. A10 is a bit more niche and guard play oriented. The bottom of the MAC, including us, is not good, the big difference I've noticed is the inability to consistently make shots, either through contact or seemingly bunnies. There are not a lot of "and ones" in this league. lol. If we can get to top of this league, and get the NCAA bid, likely a better shot at a win, IMO. The drop off for A10 since 2018/2019 has been stark. This year St. Louis is legit. VCU/GMU are sniffing the bubble. 12 years ago, 6 A10 teams made the tournament, including us, with that totally inflated 6 seed.

[Juice Stand]

undefeated Miami (OH) made their way into the rankings this week at #25. In A10 news, St Louis is ranked for the first time this season at #24.

[MikeUMA]

One reason it took Miami so long to get ranked: their SOS is 348 (according to the MAC), 354 according to Bracketologists.com, and the latter shows their non-conf SOS as 363.