The Univer­sity of Toledo and men’s bas­ket­ball coach Tod Kow­al­czyk agreed to ex­tend Kow­al­czyk’s con­tract through the 2022-23 sea­son.

“I’m just ex­tremely ex­cited about our fu­ture,” Kow­al­czyk said. “I’m truly hum­bled and ap­pre­cia­tive that [UT pres­i­dent] Dr. [Sharon] Gaber and [UT vice pres­i­dent and ath­letic di­rec­tor] Mike O’Brien would give their con­fi­dence in my­self and our staff and the Toledo pro­gram.”

Kow­al­czyk, who was hired in 2010, makes an an­nual base sal­ary of $325,000 and re­ceived $135,000 in mar­ket­ing com­pen­sa­tion in 2017-18. Since 2011, the mar­ket­ing com­pen­sa­tion has in­creased by $15,000 each year. Under the new ex­ten­sion, that mar­ket­ing com­pen­sa­tion fig­ure will re­main fixed start­ing March 30, 2023.

This sea­son, with Toledo win­ning the Mid-Amer­i­can Con­fer­ence West Divi­sion reg­u­lar-sea­son ti­tle, Kow­al­czyk earned a bo­nus of $16,250 (5 per­cent of his base sal­ary).

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Kow­al­czyk is now tied for third place on the school’s all-time vic­tory list with 142 wins. He has guided UT to a 104-62 mark (.627 win­ning per­cent­age) the past five sea­sons, with the Rock­ets’ vic­tory to­tal dur­ing that span rank­ing sec­ond in the MAC. In­cluded in that is a school-record 27 wins (in 34 games) in 2013-14.

“Since we moved here in 2010, [his wife] Julie and I have ab­so­lutely loved liv­ing here, and this is where we want to raise our fam­ily,” Kow­al­czyk said. “We love be­ing a part of this com­mu­nity and look for­ward to be­ing ac­tive in the com­mu­nity for years to come.”

The Rock­ets are com­ing off a 23-11 sea­son, which ended with a loss to Buf­falo in the MAC tour­na­ment cham­pi­on­ship game. Toledo se­nior Tre’Shaun Fletcher earned the school’s first con­fer­ence player of the year honor since 1981.

Kow­al­czyk thinks the pro­gram is in a good place right now and is gain­ing mo­men­tum head­ing into next sea­son.

“I re­ally like the guys we have in our pro­gram,” Kow­al­czyk said. “I re­ally love the tal­ent level that we have com­ing back. You’ve got Jaelan San­ford, you’ve got Marreon and Wil­lie Jack­son, you’ve got Nate Nav­i­gato, and Luke Kn­apke will only be a ju­nior next year. The fu­ture is very bright.”

The new con­tract will give the pro­gram a sense of sta­bil­ity and should only help in bring­ing in play­ers in the fu­ture, the coach said.

“I think it helps our re­cruit­ing,” Kow­al­czyk said. “When peo­ple see sta­bil­ity and they see the di­rec­tion of the pro­gram in a very pos­i­tive way, it helps us at­tract the type of men we want in our pro­gram.”

Be­fore com­ing to UT, Kow­al­czyk posted a 136-112 record in eight years as Wis­con­sin-Green Bay’s head coach. The Phoe­nix ad­vanced to post­sea­son play and notched back-to-back 22-win sea­sons his fi­nal two sea­sons.

“Tod has proven him­self to be a tre­men­dous leader, and we are ex­tremely pleased to ex­tend his con­tract,” O’Brien said in a state­ment. “He and his staff have es­tab­lished our pro­gram as one of the best in the Mid-Amer­i­can Con­fer­ence. Our out­look is ex­tremely bright for next year and be­yond. Even more im­pres­sive than our suc­cess on the court is the ac­a­demic cul­ture that’s been es­tab­lished which has our pro­gram at the top of the MAC.”

Contact Brian Buckey at: bbuckey@theblade.com, 419-724-6110, or on Twitter @BrianBuckey.

First Published March 28, 2018, 2:55 p.m.