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Hope everyone is having safe and enjoyable holidays.  As the MAC regular season is about to get underway, thought it would be a good time to present how various ranking sites viewed the MAC based on OOC performance.  Nearly every team underperformed relative to initial expectations, the exceptions being Toledo and E Michigan.  As it stands right now, the MAC would be a three team race between Toledo, Ohio and Buffalo.  The next three would be Akron, Kent and Miami OH, but they would appear to be a notch or two below. 

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First I would like to say I hope all the players manage to remain healthy / safe.

Focusing on Buffalo goals: 1.) Regular season record minimum of 15-5; 2.) Win the MAC tournament - initially I was saying this was not a must as I thought the team would have done better in OOC.  However, since the team has underperformed relative to my expectations, I view a MAC tournament win now a must, quite difficult, but a must.   

With that in mind, looking at the MAC - it would seem that getting the top seed for MAC tournament may be important, as #2/#3 seed will likely have a much tougher road to the finals - i.e. if order of finish is per current net rank, Buffalo would have to beat Miami OH, Ohio and then Toledo.  The #1 seed would have something like E Michigan, Kent St... so maybe #1 seed should be a goal as well.

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Are the games on for Wednesday? No mention of it here, but amazing that it is considering Saturday is already off. Surely a huge crowd is expected for the mid-week afternoon games when people have to go to work. At least the 5-11 year olds are all allowed to attend one final time this season.

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21 minutes ago, Erie County said:

You mean taking a shot on a younger motivated guy like Boals was the right move? Shocker.

This is what I want our next coach to be. I don’t mind having someone come in to build their resume before bolting to a bigger school. All that means for us is dancing. As you said…the Hurley/Oats model.

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1 hour ago, 121Merrimac said:

Partly.  Maybe Tee was also implying a former player model?

Not necessarily, but you know any former player would have a ton of passion for the University 

What I was implying is sometimes you have to take a step back before taking off again. Ohio did just that. Ohio was starting to take over the mac under groce the same way oats and ub did. Difference is oats stayed that extra year and saw the what ub can become

Going back to a former player led me to see what turner battle was up to, he is currently coaching at east Tennessee st under desmond Oliver (both I believe interviewed here). Wonder when he will get a head coaching job, coached under a few guys who have moved up to power head coaching jobs 

 

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2 hours ago, Erie County said:

With a lot more rebuilding to do now than the coach would have had 3 years ago.

Where ub is currently is very similar to where Ohio was when boals was hired

Boals hit a gold mine with Preston, who was already on the roster. Believe some of ohios contributors this season were already rostered as well

I think there is a poster on here who was an Ohio grad who could help with the comparison a bit more than I can 

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1 hour ago, Tee4three said:

Where ub is currently is very similar to where Ohio was when boals was hired

Boals hit a gold mine with Preston, who was already on the roster. Believe some of ohios contributors this season were already rostered as well

I think there is a poster on here who was an Ohio grad who could help with the comparison a bit more than I can 

I would say Ohio hit rock bottom before they finally decided to go with the obvious hire in Jeff Boals.

People forget they hired Jim Christian after Groce departed and won 49 games in two seasons before he bolted for Boston College. Christian won a lot but was considered a disappointment. They settled for the NIT in their final season with DJ Cooper, Walter Offutt and Ivo Baltic despite making the Sweet 16 and finishing 25th in the country the year before.

Saul Phillips won only 10 games in his first year as the program couldn’t deal with all of their short term changes but he figured things out with Antonio Campbell and everyone thought they were back. They had two 20-win seasons under him before they completely fell apart.

Boals was the guy the fanbase wanted since John Groce departed. He’s an Ohio alumnus, high energy, great recruiter, relates to the younger generation and knows the game inside/out.

It only took the program to bottom out before realizing that’s what they needed. I don’t know enough about Turner Battle beyond his playing days at UB but that’s a hire that would fire up a portion of the Bulls fanbase.

 

 

Edited by Big 4 Hoops Blogger
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So essentially, the reason I’ve been so difficult on UB at times is that I didn’t want what happened to Ohio to take place at Buffalo.

Luckily for the Bobcats, they eventually figured things out but it was looking scary for a while.

Unlike Whitesell, Jim Christian didn’t receive much support by the Ohio fanbase at the beginning due to his personality and him being a former Kent State head coach.

Bobcat fans wanted to love Saul Phillips but he just wasn’t consistent enough.

I think the moral of the story is, hiring a solid coach is an inexact science. Sometimes making a safe hire keeps you consistently good but never great while risky hires have the ability to elevate or destroy your program.

Then there’s obvious choices that schools luck into and I think OU is benefitting from that right now.

To sum up, I think UB is better than Ohio was when they hired Boals but he was lucky to inherit untapped talent. I don’t know if I like the depth behind the Bulls Big 3 that a new UB coach would inherit in the unlikely scenario that Whitesell leaves.

Edited by Big 4 Hoops Blogger
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