I don’t mean to get the hopes of Toledo basketball fans up, but word is a member of the NCAA tournament selection committee will be at Savage Arena for Friday’s full-house showdown.
And he won’t be there to scout Buffalo, either.
“What’s been lost somewhat with this game is that the Rockets are 20-4 and having a heck of a season,” the anonymous committee member told us after praising Buffalo. “There’s a buzz.”
In other words, start waxing the dance floor!
OK, maybe not.
If we must blow his cover, our insider is Mike O’Brien, and the first-year committee member was speaking in his role as Toledo athletic director, not a college basketball tastemaker.
He is a little biased.
Still, the point holds.
For all the bouquets tossed at 25th-ranked Buffalo (21-3, 9-2 MAC) — and deservedly so — Toledo (20-4, 8-3) has quietly turned into a team worth watching, too.
This contest isn’t a timid matador against the Bulls. The Rockets have plenty on the line themselves.
With a victory, Toledo — winners of eight of nine — becomes a serious contender for the league regular-season title, along with something more than a pretender for its first NCAA tournament trip since 1980.
Yes, a win would not just continue to peel back Buffalo’s once-thick veneer of invincibility heading into Cleveland, where the league tournament champion will earn an automatic invite to the 68-team dance.
It would also give the Bulls company on the tourney bubble for an at-large berth.
I swear, I read it on the Internet!
As it is, the Rockets are 35th in the RPI (the old primary metric used by the selection committee) and 53rd in the NET rankings (the new one), and beginning to appear on the bracketology radar. According to Bracket Matrix, which combines media projections to arrive at an aggregate field, Toledo is currently the seventh team out of the tournament. The Rockets appear on 10 of the 106 brackets.
Could magic be in the air?
As a committee member, O’Brien won’t go there. Neither will coach Tod Kowalczyk, who said this week he’ll leave the debate to us. (”I answered a question like that in December and got ripped for it,” he reminded, graciously not calling out the know-it-all columnist by name.)
Almost certainly, we all know the answer is ... keep dreaming.
There’s good reason the MAC’s at-large drought is old enough to vote. For a mid-major, a second slot in the NCAA field is more exclusive real estate than Fifth Avenue.
But it’s a fun barroom topic just the same.
Let’s start with the case for Toledo.
Humor us, and say UT evens its score with Buffalo, then sweeps its last five regular-season games, all against teams with losing league records. If the Rockets went on to lose in the conference tournament final, that would put them at 28-5 with a likely NET in the 40s and an RPI in the high 20s.
In this scenario, I believe the strength of the MAC would offset their blah nonconference schedule — highlighted by wins over Penn (92 NET) and UC Irvine (108) — and they would have a real shot.
Consider that no team has ever won more than 28 games and not gotten a bid to the tourney.
Problem is, Toledo has no margin for error, the system rigged, of course, in favor of the big-money leagues.
Last year, the committee selected a record five teams with losing league records — Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona State, and Syracuse — at the expense of a line of more deserving mid-majors. This year, I believe it already has Indiana (13-11, 4-9 Big Ten) written in as a No. 8 seed, give or take a line depending on if the Hoosiers lose all of their last seven games or only six of them.
That’s just the way it is.
We saw what happened in 2014, when the Rockets won a school-record 27 games, including at Boston College. They were hardly given a second thought.
Barring a near-perfect stretch run, chances are they won’t be this year, either. (Note: O’Brien must recuse himself from any discussions on Toledo in the committee room.)
But, hey, it never hurts to dream. The Rockets have a good thing going, and the nation — and computers — are taking notice as their signature opportunity awaits.
Keep an eye on the hottest team in the MAC here Friday.
And Buffalo, too.
First Published February 14, 2019, 10:47 p.m.
