Corey, an Oakland University student and the basketball loving dude I mentioned above, is a versatile individual with a keen grasp of what March Madness is all about. Only a versatile person such as Corey would ever actually go through the process of writing something about the Mid-American Conference (MAC). See Corey understands what it means to be a fan of a mid-major basketball. He knows it is not all about rooting for teams to make final fours or to sign phenomenal high school players that will only stay a year or two. It is about finding the right nucleus of overlooked, under-valued players who will stay for FOUR years and help mold and stabilize a good program into a great program. Corey understands college hoops at its most unblemished, purist level.

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This Slipper Is One Size Fits All

This year has been a down one for the Mid-American Conference. Put simply, the programs that gather ‘round the Great Lakes have done nothing but beat up on each other. This isn’t a new phenomenon either. Over the past decade the MAC has slowly taken a backseat in mid-major importance to the sheep-like MAAC, a conference that has two NCAA tourney wins in as many years and boasts a great Siena squad. The MAC, on the other hand, hasn’t posted a victory in the bracket games since Chris Kaman and his Central Michigan squad took down Creighton in 2003. The likelihood that this trend will reverse this year looks bleak.

With that said, there has been some great basketball going on in the MAC this year. We’ve seen teams like Ball State, Bowling Green, and Miami (OH) dominate opponents throughout the season only to falter at some point, pointing to the great amount of parity that exists in the league this year. All of this culminates in the conference tourney, scheduled to begin today (Corey sent this to me early Tuesday) in Cleveland at the House LeBron Built.

Over the next five days expect a mix of mediocrity and excitement from the games at the Q. Sure, there will be some early games that will be sloppy and exhaustive to watch. But the games starting on Thursday will surely bring out some excitement from these football schools as absolutely anything can happen when you are talking about a league without a reliable “top three.” The Akron Zips or the Kent State Golden Flashes have just as good of a chance of coming out victorious as the number one seed Bowling Green. Me, I’m expecting the Buffalo Bulls to parallel the recent success of their football program, which played in its first ever bowl game back in January. For the men’s basketball team, a win here would result in their first ever NCAA tourney appearance. ‘Tis a good time to be a Bull.
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FYI

Every so often Corey will post content on his own site, The Peeking Grizz. A little while ago he wrote about star Oakland University big man Keith Benson. You can access the post here. And while you’re at it, leave a comment for Corey, the post is darn good, I mean, Rush The Court linked to it for cripe’s sake!!

Post from: EveryJoe

You know it is March when…

-2007/08 was the inaugural season for the Summit League.

-The league was called the Mid-Continent Conference from 1989-2007. From 1982-1989 it was called the Association of Mid-Continent Universities.

May 15th 2007

“Beginning June 1st, the Mid-Continent Conference will be known as the Summit League. The name change is part of the “Summit Plan” to try and turn the league into a premier academic and athletic mid-major conference. The Mid-Con has struggled in recent years to find an identity, as its schools are scattered throughout the country, and it has experienced turnover in member teams. Going forward, the league will consist of: Centenary College, IPFW, IUPUI, UMKC, North Dakota State, Oakland, Oral Roberts, South Dakota State, Southern Utah and Western Illinois. The new logo and name “summit” are meant to suggest the peak of excellence, and not have any association with being located around a mountainous region.”

Collegehoopsnet

-League consists of ten schools from nine different states. Travel budgets explode in this league.

-School enrollment’s range from a little over a 1,000 to more than 27,000.

-Western Illinois is the only member that has been in the conference from the beginning (1982).

-Valparaiso was a member of the conference as recently as 2006/2007. But Valpo apparently wanted to step their game up and arguably did so by escaping to the Horizon League.

-Oral Roberts has represented the league in the NCAA tourney for the past 3 years.

- Oral Roberts President Richard Roberts committed a couple of crimes and thought it would be all ok since God told him to do it.

-For the last two seasons the league has been nestled in the #22 slot (out of 30) in terms of conference RPI strength.

-Former IUPUI Jaguar George Hill chose to forego his senior year and it paid off big time. Selected in the first round of the 08 draft by the San Antonio Spurs.

-Not surprisingly the 08 Summit League’s Conference Player of the Year was George Hill.

-North Dakota State is somewhat of the favorite to take the regular season title and go into the conference tourney with a #1 seed. Collegehoopsnet.com believes they will come out of it with a NCAA berth. Oakland University is picked to be the Bison’s toughest challenger.

-This is the first season North Dakota State and South Dakota State are eligible for postseason play on the DI level.

-The conference tourney will be held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 2009. The top eight teams qualify.

Enlightened anyone?

Post from: EveryJoe

Getting to know the Summit League (II)