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The MAC regular season championship could be decided by a coin flip

If Ohio beats Akron and both teams finish the season 15-1, the MAC Basketball Tournament No. 1 overall seed (and more) will be determined by the random chance of a coin in the air.

By Matt Sussman
A complete collection of predestined MAC championship outcomes.
A complete collection of predestined MAC championship outcomes.
Stefan Postles

We all love tiebreakers. Okay ... some of us love tiebreakers, because we need better hobbies.

The MAC Basketball Tournament has a tiebreaker page that helps determine seeding when two teams have identical conference records:

A. Head-to-head competition

B. Division Record (10 games) (For the purpose of determining the Divisional Champion ONLY)

C. Winning percentage* vs. ranked conference teams
(top to bottom, regardless of division, vs. common opponents regardless of the number of times played)

D. Coin flip

That means if Ohio beats Akron tomorrow night, they will have split the season series (A). Assuming they go onto win their final three games apiece — a definite plausibility, given how the season has went — then they will be a perfect 14-0 against everybody else, meaning that (B) and (C) will be equal. That leaves us with (D):

We were given some nice reasons for why Akron should go 16-0. I don't deny that they're are some convincing reasons to pull for the Zips. But I am also inexplicably drawn to chaos. We would be determining not only the No. 1 overall seed, but also the autobid into the NIT, with the flip of a coin. So we need Ohio to win tomorrow.

But how and when does the coin get flipped? This remains a mystery, but as Members Of The Internet many of us have some ideas:

Keep going further with this. Have an online contest to determine who gets the flip the coin. Or get a former MAC basketball legend to flip it. We'd have to leave out any Bobcats or Zips to eliminate bias. We may have to go all the way into the East Division, an obscure collection of MAC teams who still play basketball, to find a legend. Is Bonzi Wells available? This seems like a job for Earl Boykins, on further thought.

Then, mint a special Akron-Ohio commemorative coin for the flip and sell them at the MAC tournament. Now that's change we can believe in.

Of course, all of this is contingent on a Bobcats win at home tomorrow against the Zips, who have the nation's longest active winning streak of 18 games. If you cannot find it in your heart to "root for Ohio," then close your eyes and remember you are rooting for a coin flip.

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