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