University of Akron men’s basketball coach Keith Dambrot refers to winning the Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament championships as the “little prize” and the “big prize.”
Then there’s a reward of a totally different sort that could be at stake Saturday afternoon, when the Zips visit Oral Roberts. A reward that needs no nickname because of the salacious envy it inspires.
An NCAA at-large bid.
The last time two MAC men’s basketball teams went to the NCAA was 1999, when tournament champion Kent State was joined by runner-up Miami. The conference placed two in the bracket three times in the 1990s, also in 1995 and ’98, and has achieved the feat six times overall.
Winning their Sears BracketBusters game against Summit League champion Oral Roberts (24-5) won’t assure the Zips (19-7) of a much-coveted spot in March Madness. They would likely need to win their remaining four regular-season MAC games and go deep in the tournament, which opens at campus sites March 5 and moves to Quicken Loans Arena March 7-10. This year, the top two seeds receive byes into the semifinals, a change designed to reward the elite and avoid burnout for those who advance. UA leads the East Division at 11-1, followed by Buffalo and Kent State at 9-3.
But with eight consecutive victories, including an 84-75 home triumph over rival Kent State on Jan. 21, such lofty goals for the Zips look much more attainable than when they stood 3-5.
“Can we get an at-large? We’re probably a long shot because nobody really understands Akron, right?” Dambrot said after the home victory Wednesday over Miami University. “And we had those losses early in the year. But if we win out, our RPI is going to be pretty high and our strength of schedule is pretty good.”
As of Thursday, UA’s Rating Percentage Index, used by the NCAA since 1981 for at-large selection and overall seeding purposes, stood at 62. Oral Roberts was at 47. A road victory over a team with a higher RPI would be a quality win in the eyes of the NCAA selection committee. The Zips already have one, that coming in the opener at Mississippi State, now 19-7 and 49th in the RPI.
This is a time when Dambrot considers the RPI of his remaining four MAC foes — Bowling Green (156), Ohio University (97), Buffalo (81) and Kent State (81). Records against top 50s and top 100s are also important categories. The Zips’ 2011-12 pedigree includes non-conference top-100 losses to the likes of Valparaiso, Duquesne, West Virginia, Middle Tennessee, Cleveland State and Virginia Commonwealth.
“Do we have enough, that’s going to be the question,” Dambrot said.
He wondered what five more victories in the regular season and a triumph in the MAC Tournament semifinals would bring. Such a surge could raise UA into the 40s. Even the 50s might be enough for the selection committee. Then the Zips could keep alive their ultimate dream — to reach the NCAA Final Four like recent Cinderellas George Mason, Butler and VCU.
Winning a BracketBuster game can springboard a team to success. In 2007-08, Kent State won at No. 23 St. Mary’s. The Golden Flashes lost the next time out at Bowling Green, but they followed with a five-game run, defeating Akron for the MAC Tournament title before falling to UNLV in the NCAA.
Dambrot worries that a door-opening road game like Oral Roberts could wear out his team for the stretch run. He remembered a February 2006 BracketBuster game at Nevada that took 21 hours of travel time on the front end. Not only were the Zips drilled by 17, but they also lost three of their final five regular-season games, were upset by Toledo in the MAC Tournament and ended up in the NIT.
“Not only did we get our brains beat in at Nevada, but we also lost the league championship,” Dambrot said.
To try to avoid that, the athletic department pulled some strings and secured a charter flight to Tulsa, Okla., that is cheaper than going commercial. A nine-hour trip each way to Oral Roberts has been reduced to a flight of no more than two hours, and the Zips will return after the game.
The charter route is not unheard of in the MAC. Kent State did the same for a 2007 trip to George Mason in Fairfax, Va.
Dambrot said the young players on his team don’t seem to be overwhelmed by pressure, that junior guard-forward Quincy Diggs seems to play better. But Dambrot seems torn on how much emphasis to place on the game at Oral Roberts, which brings heavy national exposure on ESPN2.
“You have to think big, so it’s a big game then, right?” he said. “Is it the biggest of the five left? Probably not.”
Diggs looks at it as “a good challenge” and a measuring stick because both UA and ORU are at the top of their leagues. Sophomore forward Demetrius Treadwell called it “a great opportunity to keep pushing to the automatic bid we’re trying to get.”
But Dambrot seeks the comfort of an at-large berth, even though the Zips have been to the MAC Tournament championship game five consecutive years.
That doesn’t seem unusual as the pressure mounts. Yet Dambrot’s other prize carries with it an unstated fear. Amid all the talk about BracketBusters and charter flights and RPI, he still seems to fear Kent State.
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her blog at http://marla.ohio.com/. Follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.
