The MAC is tough to discuss. There are a lot of teams. They insist on using divisions, even in basketball. There’s generally a fairly tight race for the regular season title (I made that up—no idea if it’s true or not but I bet it is).
This is good and bad. Good, because it clears the air for other conferences. Bad, because sometimes it makes us hesitant to bring up how Akron is absolutely dominating league play.
In the first four games of MAC action (Hear me out: What if they called this MACtion? Just a thought.) the Zips have won by 24, 15, 15, and 23. Last night they held NIU to 49 points. Joe, who wrote about these guys a while back, says they should be favored in all but one of their remaining games, and even that one—a trip to Kent—is a tossup right now.
The Zips are electric, tearing it up from deep, riding upon the wing of a five-foot-eight-inch Chicago transplant with three first names (Loren, Cristian, and Jackson—in order, making him 1.5 times cooler than Ricky Bobby), relying on men with names like Xeyrius (first name) and Cheese (last name) to share the load. Their only losses on the year have come to Liberty, Louisville, and West Virginia, who have a combined six losses themselves. They even play defense, so you can bring them home to dad.
A lot can change, but a big question is beginning to blossom regarding whether I’ll get to write a Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah! headline when they win in the NIT’s first round or if some “journalist” covering a certain other tournament will use it when they win in a certain other tournament’s first round. Here’s hoping it’s the former.
