While it's obvious the Bobcats have not played as most predicted/expected, who thinks MAC play will see Ohio regroup a bit and who thinks otherwise?

Records aside here is how things look to me.

Tier 1 -- Akron is clear No. 1

Tier 2 -- Miami is clear but suspect No. 2

Tier 3 -- Buffalo, Kent, Toledo, Eastern are mid-pack.

Tier. 4 -- Bowling Green, UMass, Ohio are still unknowns.

Tier 5 -- NIU, CMU, WMU, Ball State bring up the rear.

My questions reside with Tier 3 and Tier 4.

(1) It will be interesting to see if any Tier 3 teams become a title threat by the end of January. Or, will Akron and Miami quickly separate.

(2) Can/Will any one or more Tier 4 team rise to Tier 3, turning the chase for 6-7-8 seed in the MAC Tournament into a dog fight.

Individually speaking, still have questions about Kent as they have yet to play a true road game. Also question if BG can put it together for the long haul. I think UB and EMU - unexpectedly - look capable of earning a Top 4 MAC Tournament seed. But time will tell.

To my knowledge Kent is the only team so far that has lost a key player (Sumlin) for the season to (foot) injury. We'll see if injury bug hits anyone else before MAC play begins.

As for the Bobcats, the road looks rough. But pedigree in the MAC usually means something. Can't lose more than two home games to have a shot at a .500 MAC season. And there are a couple of winnable road games if this team is up to the task.

The season is not lost. Target now should be Cleveland or Bust!!

My predictions: UMass will rise to Tier2 in conference play; and my beloved Bobcats will sink to the bottom Tier. I hope I'm wrong, but the MAC top to bottom looks like it is stronger this year than it's been in awhile, and OHIO looks like a bunch of guys playing pickup ball at Ping. Speaking of playing pickup ball at Ping, my sources tell me that Quinn Corna is enrolled at OHIO again, and has been spotted there this year jacking up and making threes at an incredible high percentage. Perhaps a return of this living legend could give the Bobcats the spark that they need! After all he further honed his Duke-level BBIQ last year at OWU and scored a career high of 12 points against #1 ranked Trine University.

Umass is like a lot of teams that had a great coach who made the team into a national power. then these teams lost their great coaches and became a middle of the pack team at best. Unlv was a team that won national championships when tarkanion was coach. then he left and unlv has,nt been close to that since. same goes for indiana and bobby knight. of course when jhon calipari coached umass they were a national power too. then calipari left and umass has not been anywhere near that level since. in this day i gotta wonder how long LOU Rowe and Marcus camby would have stayed at umass before hitting the transfer portal to hope fully play for team like Kansas.

Hey you made some sense with this one.

Since UNLV's title in 1990:

UNLV - 9 NCAA Tournament appearances (last was in 2013), 4 conference tournament championships

UMass- 8 NCAA Tournament appearances (last was in 2014 after a 16 year drought), 5 conference tournament championships

It's always Cleveland or Bust.


I'm not sold on Miami being anything more than a middle tier team.

They're winning with the worst schedule in the country. Dead last. Incredible schedule, honestly.

But the hype around them shows why I chose having an ass schedule vs having a Top 35 schedule in that poll.

MU v Maine: 93 - 61
OU v Maine: 79 - 57

It's hard to find much more via common opponents, but OU also beat Marshall, who beat Wright State by 2, who hung with Miami to the end last night. They're hardly a world beater. They're a team that couldn't shake a below .500 team all night.

Cleveland is always the goal, but the year is still young. Rough start but we are starting conference play on a 4-game winning streak

The entire MAC is always Cleveland or Bust.....

That could change if 2 schools load up some NIL funds but I'm not holding my breath.

My top four pick:

Zips
Flashes
UMass
Bulls/OHIO tie

Once Miami starts losing it will go downhill fast for them.

Miami will end up ahead of the Bobcats in the regular season standings. The above forecast has them outside of the top five. That won’t happen.

Miami's PG Ipsarro injured yesterday, out for the year.

As of 12/23/25 .. the MAC guess is:

Akron
Miami
BG
Buffalo
KENT

UMass
Toledo
Ohio-EMU

WMU
NIU
CMU
BSU

The top 2 in that second group look to be MAC Tournament locks, shy of any meaningful injury issues. The last 2 look to be fighting for the last MAC Tournament slot ... which makes hed-to-hed matchups critical.

The last 4 teams are who the are.