Akron

A rivalry that in recent years switched from the Big East to the ACC takes center stage on Thursday night, as Virginia Tech (6-3, 3-2 ACC Coastal) visits Miami (6-3, 3-2) at 7:30 PM on ESPN. The winner gets a leg up in the unpredictable Coastal Division race, while the loser would be in serious trouble. Although Miami has a 16-9 advantage in the series, the Hokies have the upper hand of late winning nine of the last thirteen meetings. A star was born last Thursday night for Virginia Tech, with redshirt freshman Darren Lewis rushing for 253 yards in their win over Maryland.

I'm not going to even get into my opinion as to teams playing on Election Day (I sure hope the Miami (Ohio) and Buffalo players get to the polls), but there is football to be played on both Tuesday and Wednesday with all three games being MAC matchups. Could Ball State be a possible upset victim on Wednesday night? Who will take control of a muddled MAC East race after these two days? Here's a preview of the three games on the slate for Tuesday and Wednesday night.

Tuesday: Miami-Ohio (2-6, 1-3) @ Buffalo (4-4, 2-2) 7:30 PM EST on ESPN2

We handpick the best performances of the day, whether it be stat lines that make you drool, or clutch performances.  Either way, its our way of showing the love:

Mid-American Conference (23-10, 11-5)

Seed: #6

RPI: 69

Big Wins: 11/26 Temple (67-65), 12/15 at Austin Peay (64-55), 3/4 at Ohio (80-77)

Cleveland, OH - It came down to two near-by rivals and a packed Quicken Loans Arena in the Mid-American Conference Championship but in the end the No. I seed pounded the No. 3 seed as Kent State cruised by Akron 74-55.

Kent State (28-6) was the dominant team in the MAC this year and the Golden Flashes dominated Akron by almost every measure.

CLEVELAND – For second time in two days Akron has exacted some revenge against teams that beat them earlier in the season.

Tonight it was Western Michigan that felt the revenge wrath of the Zips as they fell to Akron 73-62.

In a game where Akron (23-9) consistently led and led by double digits starting at the end of the first half It came down to the Zips’ strong shooting performance.

Akron shot a blazing 58.7 percent (27-46) from the field versus 44.7 percent (21-47) for Western Michigan (20-12).

CLEVELAND – With four quarterfinals games today I am just going to get the highlights of the games and try to give fans a flavor for what is going.

Game One: WMU vs EMU

Led by David Kool’s 24 points No. 2 seed Western Michigan (20-11) beat No. 7 seed Eastern Michigan (14-17). In a game that Eastern Michigan never led, they did make it interesting when at the 10:34 mark they tied the game at 34-34 when Jarrad Axon made two foul shots, but that was a fleeting moment of joy as the Broncos closed it out to end Eastern Michigan’s season.
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Games of the Night

A companion to our daily Three Stars of the Day, we present the top three Games of the Night.