Exit MAC or CC Death March your choice

Men's Sports
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I knew this time would come, 25-9 and not even a sniff at an at large or even a NIT. I love the MAC, so I don’t really want to leave and I doubt we can get any better until more movement happens in the other conferences. However, unless we win the MAC tourney it’s a one bid league. The only way to change that is to play Quad 4 teams and beat them! CC knew that and it was fun in a way, especially when we win or come close like at UK.

Thus we either find a way into a higher level conference or raise our schedule strength? Otherwise win the MAC tourney or go home. To me I would rather play the tougher OOC, if you get blasted, you can still win the MAC tourney. If you play rum-dumbs and finish 25-9 and get no respect, who cares.

Some of you anti-death marchers now know the facts, it just happened to us!

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Playing the Death March schedule doesn’t help when the bottom of the MAC is so abjectly awful. Replace our two D-3 games with Kent State’s Auburn and Alabama losses (giving us OOC matchups with Michigan, Indiana, Auburn, and Alabama) and we’re still on the outside looking in.

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Worked for Xavier in the old days, worked for Gonzaga. Good teams that play tough OOC and have a weak conference can get an At large.

Worked in a small way for Kent as it relates to NIT.

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At one point during the first half of Saturday’s game, I thought, “This outside shooting is similar to Nick Winbush against Kentucky. Hopefully it doesn’t end the same way.”

It obviously ended the same way.

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I was thinking the same exact thing, knowing our luck.

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To be fair, Gonzaga has won the conference tournament in something like 21 or 22 times in the last 26 years. They usually didn’t even need to think about getting an at-large spot, even during the early years of their current run.

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Exit MAC.

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8

I would rather play in the AAC one day than the MAC. ACC is unrealistic. At least AAC sometimes gets 2 bids

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9

I’d rather drop hockey and give it a few few years with additional money floated to MBB and see where we land.

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10

Gonzaga statement while true is also misleading in the last 10-15 yrs. If they didn’t win their tourney they would have been an at large, they play a CC Death March schedule and do well.

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Unfortunately Miami is entering a really tough scheduling no man’s land. Teams generally don’t want to buy tough games. The format of the NET gives the P4 enough strength in conference that they don’t need us.

I think Steele wouldn’t even be able to replicate a CC schedule in 2025 even if he wanted to. I doubt Michigan or IU would be interested in scheduling us next year like they did this year.

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12

I think the way to sneak in better non conference games is to get invited to better MTEs at the beginning of the year and thanksgiving

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13

Tough OOC with 3:1s AND some other interesting local mid-majors coming to Oxford.

Not to thread jack, but a good Miami team hosting Butler, Drake, DePaul, X, Dayton, Vanderbilt, Richmond, Pitt and the like would be so much more interesting than Wilberforce, Bellarmine, Defiance, etc.

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I have unfortunately been a bit of a pessimist in terms of Miami regaining relevance in the NCHC. I have been belittled by the hockey faithful among us for continually wondering why the best talent in college hockey are going to want to play for one of the worst programs in the country, much less the NCHC.

I also kinda wish that the beautiful Goggin Arena had been designed to be able to convert to a basketball arena in a financially realistic manner.

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None of the teams you listed would come to Millet in modern college hoops. And we couldn’t afford them even if they would

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It’s cyclical. Miami hockey now is similar to pre-Chuck Martin Miami Football… it will get better.

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Looks like Boise State got the mid-major slot for the 2025 Maui Invitational. (Yes, I checked.) But I think you are right that this season may build a platform to upgrade that portion of the schedule.

Edited to add: Battle for Atlantis isn’t full yet. They generally get some big teams and plenty of air time but also invite a couple of mid-majors. Davidson played there last year.

This is a pretty complete list of the in-season tournaments for 2024, so you can see for yourself which ones tend to have a mix of P4 and mid-major teams.

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18

I just don’t think Miami has the ability or desire to compete at the highest level in all 3 of its revenue sports. But if they actually build this new basketball arena, they’re committed to all 3 for the foreseeable future

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IDK, for a 2:1 with DePaul, Butler, X or Dayton, doesn’t seem like it’d be that out of the realm of possibilities. It’s not exactly asking UNC or UCONN… however, if it were that easy, it’d probably have been done already.

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Will it???