Thanks Gary for your willingness to allow another Mid Major voice to your blog (and a happy birthday as well!).
I grew up in Kent, went to Miami (along with 8 other family members!), and worked in Akron prior to moving to Richmond with my family. Despite living in the heart of ACC and A-10 country, I maintain my allegiance to the MAC and in particular Kent and Miami.
As we discussed I do believe that all of us "mid-major fanatics" believe in our teams and conferences and that each year many are overlooked for at large bids by the NCAA selection committee. I do believe that some conferences, like the MAC, are repeatedly overlooked or dismissed because relative weakness in the bottom half of the conference and the way home teams beat each other up during the year. While every conference has its up and down years, I think that Kent, Miami, Ohio, Akron, and even Western Michigan ,are as good a top five as that from any other mid major conference this year.
Kent did indeed put some distance between themselves and the rest with a win against Ohio (I am sure you missed it!!!!!) where they led from wire to wire. No doubt they will have a great opportunity to do themselves and the MAC a huge favor by winning next Saturday in their match-up against St Mary's. Take a closer look at the wins the MAC has this year against other top Mid-major conferences and I think that you and your readers will take a second look at the caliber of ball being played in the shadow of the Big 10.
Miami should get back in the mid-major top 25 with their 5th win in the last six games at Buffalo tonight and Akron picked up a nice road win at BG to stay in the mid-major hunt until star Jeremiah Wood returns.
By the way, nice win by Hofstra today as JMU continues their slide. I suspect we will see VCU win big tonight at home against VCU (we are headed down to the game soon) and George Mason may get a surprise tonight against UNCW. That would leave VCU with the only at-large opportunity for the CAA.
I look forward to our continuing dialog and hope that some fellow MACer's will find time to post!
All the best!
Comments