As the 2010-11 Mid-American Conference schedule winds down, the division championship races are heating up as a plethora of teams remain in contention to grab either a share of or an outright division title.

Most teams have six conference games remaining, plus an ESPN BracketBuster contest, and some have a much easier road home than others. With the East sweeping the West in five cross-division games last night things remain on par for a wild final few weeks.

Kent State, fresh off its 80-70 win over Eastern Michigan, sits atop the MAC East standings at 7-2 in the conference, but its remaining schedule has the Flashes hitting the road often and having to hold serve against their toughest conference foes at home. Buffalo, Miami and Bowling Green, all chasing the Flashes in the East standings one single game behind, have easier schedules remaining but have to make up that game (or half-game in Buffalo’s case) in the standings and can’t afford to lose a game they should win.

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(This is the second in a series of in-depth looks at each 2011 MAC recruiting class)

Darrell Hazell was deeply involved in recruiting the state of Florida in his time as receivers coach at Ohio State. Now, at the helm of his own program at Kent, the first-year head coach is concentrating a little more on his own back yard.

Hazell’s 18-player recruiting class includes 13 from Ohio, just one from Florida and one each from Arizona, California, Florida and Virginia.

Included in the class are 16 high school players, one junior college transfer and one member already enrolled at Kent.

It was a decent haul for a coach that has been on the job for just six weeks.

 “I’m so excited about this recruiting class,” Hazell said. “There is a lot of talent, great character and guys that have done an outstanding job in the classroom. We fully anticipate that these players are going to do exceptional things for Kent State in the near future.”

Local high school football fans will recognize one of the top players in the class, Lakewood St. Edwards running back Terrell Bates, a 5-foot-9, 205-pounder that led his Eagles to the big school Ohio State Championship last season.

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Kent State will kick off the Ninth Annual ESPN BracketBuster schedule on Friday, Feb. 18 when it travels to Drexel to take on the Dragons at Daskalakis Athletic Center.

The game will tip off at 9 p.m. and is one of 11 BracketBuster games that will feature a Mid-American Conference team. It is the first game on the BracketBuster schedule and will be televised nationally on ESPN U. The BracketBuster format involves 114 teams from mid-major conferences across the country, giving them an opportunity to bolster their NCAA Tournament resumes.

Drexel is currently 14-7 overall and 6-5 in Colonial Athletic Association play. The Dragons are led by a talented trio offensively, but defense is their calling card. Chris Fouch, a 6-foot-2 sophomore guard, leads Drexel in scoring at 15.9 points per game. Fouch is the Dragons’ top perimeter threat and has hoisted up 134 3-point attempts this season, connecting at 38.1%. Samme Givens, a 6-5 junior forward, averages a double-double, posting 12.0 points and 10.5 rebounds per game. Givens also shoots 52.9% from the floor. Gerald Colds, a 6-1 senior guard, rounds out the Dragons that average double figures in points, scoring at a 10.7 points per game clip while shooting 34.4% from 3-point range.

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The Mid-American Conference 2010-11 schedule is winding down with about 10 games remaining for each team, so it is a good time to look at how the teams stack up.

Here are my MAC power rankings, and if you would have told me before the season started that they would look as they do this late in the season I would have probably told you to lay off the heavy medication.

It has been an exciting season thus far, and Akron coach Keith Dambrot was 100% correct when he recently said the teams in the conference, from top to bottom, are very similar. There really aren’t any easy wins on the MAC schedule this season, and no one has really gotten hot and put themselves in position to take command of either division. The East, in particular, is brutal and any one of the six teams could end up with the division crown. There is little doubt the East crown will be decided in the final weekend of the regular season.

Here are the rankings as of 1/29:

1.       Buffalo Bulls (13-6 overall, 5-2 MAC) – In the preseason no one expected Buffalo to be a factor in the race for the MAC East crown, but Reggie Witherspoon has his Bulls playing as hard as anyone in the conference. The reason Buffalo has been so successful this season is discipline. UB runs its offensive sets patiently and works for a good look virtually every time down the floor, and as a result leads the conference in field goal percentage at 48.4%. The Bulls also lead in 3-point percentage at 38.5%. Meanwhile, Buffalo plays a stingy, attacking defense that forces opponents to play virtually mistake-free basketball if it wants to have a chance to win. The backcourt tandem of Zach Filzen and Byron Mulkey has been the best in the conference this season, with Mulkey ninth in scoring at 14.5, third in assists at 4.89 and first in steals at 2.84. Filzen is eighth in scoring at 15.1 and leads the MAC in 3-pointers made with 67. Down low junior center Mitchell Watt has been dominant at times. He is third in the conference in blocked shots (2.26 per contest) and blocked six in the first half in Buffalo’s blowout home victory over Kent. After a pair of losses to open its MAC slate, at home against Bowling Green and at Miami, Buffalo has reeled off five straight conference wins, including road wins at Ohio and Western Michigan. Buffalo will find out a lot about itself in February, where its schedule gets difficult. In Feb. the Bulls will have to travel to Muncie to take on Ball State Feb. 5, and will face both Kent State and Akron on the road Feb. 24 (Kent) and Feb. 26 (Akron).

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