Tuesday was Craft Beer Night at Savage Arena, which by the end of the Toledo basketball team’s 71-59 win over Miami, made it hard to see much of anything, let alone the forest through the trees.
But grab a glass and let’s give it a shot.
The other day, an anonymous poll of Mid-American Conference basketball coaches ranking the top jobs in the league got us thinking.
What should we expect of Toledo?
I don’t mean this season.
I mean, what level of success should we reasonably expect from the program?
You see, the poll confirmed our belief that the Toledo job is as coveted as any in the league.
It was an interesting, behind-the-curtains peek, compiled by former ESPN insider Jeff Goodman, now at the website Watch Stadium. A handful of MAC coaches helped rate the dozen conference gigs based on eight categories, including the programs’ tradition, infrastructure, fan support, and location.
The MAC Chain of Command — where we rank the jobs in the league from top to bottom after polling coaches: https://t.co/x0AqPYVuof
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) January 11, 2019
Toledo came in second, just behind Ohio and well ahead of everyone else. (Bowling Green rated eighth, oddly knocked by one MAC head coach for its non-oceanfront address “right off the highway” and “poor academic reputation.” Uh, relative to who, that public Ivy in Akron?)
Further, UT was the only job to finish in the top half of every category, with those polled extolling the school as having a lot to sell (No. 1 facilities) and a lot of kids to sell it to (No. 1 recruiting base).
It’s the kind of foundation suggestive of a program that every few years is the best team in the league and regularly visits the NCAA tournament.
Not to pick at the scab, but consider: Between the five other league schools rated in the top six — Ohio, Akron, Kent State, Ball State, and Buffalo — all of them have made the tourney this century, and four have crashed it three times each since 2005. (As a consolation, the other school, Ball State, has beaten Toledo five straight times.)
Toledo, of course, remains the unexplainable March outlier, the reigning and forever Susan Lucci of the MAC. The Rockets last danced in 1980.
So, back to our question.
If Toledo is so well positioned relative to its league peers, what is fair to expect — and require — of the basketball program?
It is a good question, and a hard one, because Tod Kowalczyk has the Rockets in a solid place.
Let’s not forget he arrived in a hazmat suit, so toxic was the sludge left behind by former coach Gene Cross. Now, the same program that was banned from the postseason in 2013 for past academic failings has the highest Academic Progress Rate in the league.
Kowalczyk runs a clean program, recruits players who represent the university well, and generally wins. Since a four-win debut season in 2010-11, his Rockets are 73-50 in the MAC, always good enough for him to stay clear of the hot seat and sometimes — like 2014 and last season — very good.
I asked Kowalczyk if he has done enough.
“It’s not for me ... I’m not going to define that,” he said. “I know this: Look at the standings. We have the second-most wins in the league the last five years.”
Yeah, but ...
Kowalczyk knew what was coming.
“I perfectly understand the NCAA tournament is how some people define success,” he said. “I’d also like to think there’s a lot of people that look at other things as well as a success. Graduation rates. Winning consistently. Regular season performance. At our level, to get to the tournament, it’s about only three games in three days.”
All of that is well taken.
And yet there is no reason Toledo shouldn’t be one of those programs that has those three magical days at the MAC tournament in Cleveland.
It’s OK to expect that.
Nothing galvanizes a community and makes a mid-major university feel truly big time like a trip to the NCAA basketball tournament, and frankly Toledo deserves the moment.
If an average of 4,239 fans are going to attend the games (second-most in the MAC) and Toledo is going to spend $2.68 million on men’s basketball (the third-most, according to federal records) and have every built-in advantage imaginable, to get a proper return on the investment, Kowalczyk needs to make the tourney one of these years, preferably sooner.
Or, in fairness, he needs to take more big swings at it.
As much as we talk about the whims of March playing no favorites, that’s not true. The MAC tourney is not a blind dart throw. Four schools have won all but two of the last 14 events, including Buffalo, a near shoo-in to win for the fourth time in five seasons. Truth is, the best programs consistently take very good teams to the league tourney and every so often the confetti rains down.
Kowalczyk has arguably once had best team in the league — the 2014 group that tied Western Michigan for the regular-season title — and twice taken the Rockets to conference title game.
Appreciate what you have, Rockets fans. The community can be proud of this program.
But don’t apologize for expecting more.
First Published January 16, 2019, 3:52 a.m.
