Tod Kowalczyk calls this Toledo basketball season the most fun miserable experience of his career.
Fun because he appreciates the attitude and energy his players continue to show behind the scenes.
Miserable because, well, look at the standings.
The preseason predictions that Toledo would win the MAC West make the storm forecasters this week look like Snow-stradamus.
Yikes.
The beat went on Friday as the Rockets’ season continued to veer off the rails in an 83-67 loss to Buffalo at Savage Arena.
And on this night, there was only misery, their 12th loss in 16 games perhaps the most deflating yet.
All year, a talented but depleted Toledo team had at least shown an outsized heart, blurring the fine line between excuses and explanations for its long winter.
That wasn’t the case on Valentine’s Day.
This was a wire-to-wire liquidation.
Toledo had more turnovers (11) than made field goals (seven) in the first half, while politely staying out of the way of the visitors. Buffalo led by as many as 26 points early in the second half and continued to pour it on.
“Every other game, nobody — nobody — could possibly fault this team's effort and heart and togetherness,” Kowalczyk said. “Tonight they could.”
That’s largely a fair assessment, and I might even say the performance Friday was understandable, given it would be human nature for a team riding five healthy players to be emotionally and physically beaten down.
But the truth is nothing about this season is easily understood.
What to make of these Rockets?
Should fans be bitterly disappointed? Or shake their fist at the basketball gods?
Please, you tell me, because I see it both ways.
Yes, many factors have contributed to their bleak record, beginning with a lot of bad luck.
And, no, I’m not talking about the kind of fortune — good bounces here, favorable whistles there — that smile on some you some years more than others, although they could use some of that, too. (Toledo is the 10th unluckiest team in the country, according to the Correlated Gaussian Method used by KenPom. What, you’ve never heard of the Correlated Gaussian Method?)
I mean all of the injuries.
With sophomore forward A.J. Edu and heralded freshman forward Mattia Acunzo both out for the season, that’s left Toledo without two players of starting caliber and down to six players it counted on this season for regular minutes, one of whom (Spencer Littleson) is playing through so much pain that he can barely lift his right arm.
As much as this will ring hollow, basketball is not the plug-and-play world of football. Lose a couple players and you’re cooked.
We all underestimated that reality, as I suspect Kowalczyk did, too. He shook his head this week when I asked him about the injuries.
“You show me nationally a team that has potentially two starters out for the year,” he said. “Find ‘em. Who's out for the season in the Big Ten? [Joshua] Langford at Michigan State. Is that it? It doesn't happen in men’s basketball very often. You may lose a guy like Isaiah Livers for a few games, and that certainly affected Michigan, but to have multiple players out for the season? I’ve had three season-ending injuries in my entire career. Two of them are this year.”
So, again, it’s fair for Toledo to curse its fortune.
But the excuses go only so far.
And, in the end, nobody wants to hear them.
The bottom line is the Rockets are still too good — I will put their top three (Marreon Jackson, Willie Jackson, and Luke Knapke) against any in the league — to look that bad Friday.
Too talented to reside third from the bottom in a wide-open league.
If this team has as much leadership and pride as Kowalczyk believes, it’s time it proves it.
First Published February 15, 2020, 4:03 a.m.
