Mid-American Conference
March 7,10-12. First round at higher seed, remaining games at Cleveland.
kPOY: Nathan Boothe, Toledo.

The MAC gets underway on Monday evening with four first round games at campus sites.

Akron won the league by two games and is the favorite to win in Cleveland. But as usual, there are plenty of MAC teams capable of pulling off the upset given that the brief 16-game conference schedule doesn’t give much time for the better teams to separate themselves.

Toledo is the perfect example of this. The Rockets finished with an 8-10 record, but are the second-highest rated MAC team. But by virtue of being the nine-seed, they must start their journey to the Q on the road and play one more game than the top four seeds, which significantly damages their chances. That means it might be one-and-done for Toledo senior forward Nathan Boothe, who was one of the most improved players in the land this season.

                      Qtrs Semis Final Champ
 1 Akron               100  67.1  47.5  32.3
 2 Ohio                100  57.3  31.6  14.3
 4 Central Michigan    100  59.8  22.6  11.5
 3 Buffalo             100  52.3  25.2  10.3
 6 Ball St.           81.9  42.1  20.9   8.7
 7 Northern Illinois  70.1  31.0  15.5   6.2
 9 Toledo             41.1  15.1   8.8   4.9
 5 Kent St.           75.7  32.5  10.2   4.5
 8 Eastern Michigan   58.9  17.8   9.2   4.5
10 Western Michigan   29.9  11.7   5.2   1.8
12 Bowling Green      24.3   7.7   1.7   0.6
11 Miami OH           18.1   5.6   1.6   0.4

(MAC tourney records since 1999)

Kent St.      26-12
Ohio          26-14
Akron         24-14
W. Michigan   17-14
Miami OH      19-16
Toledo        15-16
Buffalo       13-15
C. Michigan   10-15
E. Michigan   10-16
Bowling Green 10-17
Ball St.       9-16
N. Illinois    4-16