BricksIt Weekly
The first ten days
Read the schedule, not the standings
Central Michigan, picked last, is the MAC's only 3-0 team. Toledo, picked second, is 1-3. Neither record means what it seems to. Not yet.
By the Hardwood Bricks desk
Ten days into the season, the MAC table looks like the preseason poll held upside down. Central Michigan, picked 12th by the league's coaches, is the only unbeaten team in the conference and has won by an average of 20 points. Toledo, picked second, is 1-3 and has been outscored by eight and a half points a game.
Now look at who they played. Central Michigan won at UL Monroe, which counts, then beat Alma, a Division III school, and Youngstown State at home, covering a 12.5-point number against the Penguins. Toledo lost by a point at Arkansas State, lost at Michigan State, went to Huntington and beat Marshall 81-76 as an underdog, then lost at home to Wright State, the best team in the Horizon League. Our model rates Toledo's schedule as the hardest in the league and Central Michigan's among the softest. It still has the Rockets (128th nationally) ahead of the Chippewas (152nd).
The model's MAC pecking order right now runs Akron, Miami, Toledo, Ohio, Bowling Green. Akron, picked third, won at Louisiana by 14, beat Muskingum by 48, and sits 86th in the country. Miami, the coaches' pick to win the league, is 2-0, though a seven-point home win over Bellarmine as an 18.5-point favorite won't keep anyone in Oxford up at night.
None of this is a verdict. It is November, the guarantee checks are still clearing, and half the league has spent the week beating teams that don't play Division I. The tells come this week and next: Tulane at the JAR at noon Saturday, Ohio at Purdue on Friday, Central Michigan at Northern Kentucky on Saturday and at Dayton on Tuesday.
By Thanksgiving the standings will start telling the truth. Until then, read the schedule.
Toledo's best night came on the road
The Rockets' lone win is the best road result in the MAC so far: 81-76 at Marshall as a 1.5-point underdog. The losses came by one point at Arkansas State, at Michigan State, and at home to Wright State. That's a 1-3 record worth reading twice.
The hundred club, with an asterisk
Akron (112 against Muskingum), Eastern Michigan (108 against Great Lakes Christian), Buffalo (107 against Penn State Schuylkill) and Kent State (102 against Roberts Wesleyan) all cracked triple digits against non-Division I teams. Fun for the scorer's table. Not much use for anything else.
Kent State lost by 18 and beat the number
UNC Wilmington won 91-73 at Trask Coliseum, but the Golden Flashes were 19.5-point underdogs. The market expected worse. Eastern Kentucky visits the M.A.C. Center on Monday.
Circle it
Central Michigan at Northern Kentucky, Saturday, 3:30 p.m., ESPN+. Our model has it 85-83, the closest MAC game on the board this week. Then the Chippewas go to Dayton on Tuesday.
By the numbers
The pecking order
Our model's rating for every MAC team: points better or worse than an average Division I team over 100 possessions. Record alongside.