UB Men's Basketball rooting interests for February 18th

Three losses in a row have really done a number on Men's Basketball's MAC Tournament hopes. Not only is UB now firmly in 6th, two games behind the four-team logjam, losses to Akron, Toledo and CMU put them in terrible tiebreaker situations should they not quite run down the peloton.

We're at a point now where it's not always clear if we want a time to rise or fall; given UB's tiebreaker situations, it may be more useful to keep, say, Central Michigan well away from UB even if it means rooting for them to take first in the conference.

That said, this round of games is relatively simple, and hopefully Saturday we have a better picture of things. For now, I'm operating under the idea that the #3-4 seed tier is the very best UB can do; there's just too many teams to jump and too few tiebreakers in the Bulls' favor.

Miami (4-8) at Bowling Green (9-3): MIAMI

Simple. Bring BG back down to the pack, and do it at the hands of the team that won't catch UB is the Bulls are to hit #4.

Northern Illinois (4-8) at Central Michigan (8-4): NORTHERN ILLINOIS

I know I used CMU in the example above, but here's another chance to knock them down a peg thanks to a team that shouldn't catch UB. Same scenario as Miami-BG.

Toledo (8-4) at Akron (8-4): TOLEDO

Here's my rationale on this one: We can still even the first tiebreaker with Akron, and they'd be 0-2 to Toledo to match our 0-1 should we be tied. Let Toledo gain a game if it helps us that much with one of the few tiebreakers we can still win.

Ball State (2-10) at Kent State (8-4): BALL STATE

Kent's another team we can still own the tiebreaker on, but this is as simple as the first two: Let the bad team bring 'em down.

Ohio (4-8) at Western Michigan (6-6): OHIO

Again, I feel dirty, but we need to keep WMU below us. There are enough teams we've got to jump/pass as it is.

***

In general, we're going to be rooting against Bowling Green until we see how our two games against them go. Even at 9-3, they along with Kent State are the most catchable of the teams in front of us. Most important is UB winning their games, starting tonight with EMU.

Go Bulls.