CLEVELAND — A gentle ocean breeze. Smooth roads. The NCAA tournament.
It may just be there are some luxuries one has to leave Toledo to experience.
One more time Friday, area college basketball fans were reminded of a searing truth.
The higher the Rockets fly, the harder they fall when the stakes are highest.
On another wrenching March night, Toledo saved its worst for last in an 87-80 loss to Ohio in the semifinals of the Mid-American Conference tournament.
What went wrong? What didn’t?
The top-seeded Rockets couldn’t shoot (6 for 29 on 3s), couldn’t rebound (the bigger Bobcats had 17 offensive rebounds), couldn’t defend, and generally looked tighter than a wool sweater fresh out of the dryer.
Other than that ...
“Obviously,” coach Tod Kowalczyk said, “a disappointing and tough loss.”
Now, you may be expecting me to bring as much heat as Toledo was cold and turn this into a scalding referendum on Toledo basketball and a March desert that makes the Sahara seem like a damn rainforest.
You’ll be disappointed.
That’s not fair. You know it. I know it.
While the dueling NCAA tournament droughts at Toledo (1980) and Bowling Green (1968) are defining millstones — and heaven knows Kowalczyk and I have gone at it at this time of year before — no single team deserves to bear the weight of history.
These Rockets are no exception. Just the opposite, all you can ask is for a team capable of taking a big swing in Cleveland, and this group was, winners of the conference by two games with a free-flowing machine of an offense during the regular season.
Marreon Jackson, Spencer Littleson, and the Rockets should be proud of their achievements under the most challenging of circumstances this year.
This was a hell of a team that had a hell of an awful night.
And, for better or worse, it’s a team that deserves to play in the NIT.
“I would be really surprised if we're not selected to play,” Kowalczyk said. “I'd like to think our league office is going to do an unbelievable job of talking to the right people. If anybody looks at the eye test, this team deserves to play as one of the 16 [best] teams that didn’t make the NCAA tournament. Us, Belmont, Utah State, people like that, we deserve to play. You look at the NET ranking, we’re 62, 63, we have been all year. It’s really hard to do that as a mid-major team. You have to be a really good team, and we’re a really good team.”
Still, Kowalczyk knows the deal.
The NIT is the last thing you want to hear about, it’s the last thing he wants to be talking about, and it’s fair to wonder why Toledo keeps falling short on the biggest stage.
Sure, you can point to the torturous whims of the conference tournament. You can point to its share of bad breaks in recent years. You can even try to rationalize nights like Friday. Here, we’ll try: Ohio at full strength is a less-than-ideal matchup for anyone — the Bobcats nearly beat third-ranked Illinois earlier this season — let alone undersized Toledo, and, when the underdogs started raining in long 3s early, it not only put the pressure on the Rockets but it kept them from doing what they do best, which is get out in transition.
And yet, in the end, the reasons and excuses bleed together, and all we’re left with are the facts.
It is the story of two seasons.
In the regular season, Kowalczyk — who has built a very good program in 11 seasons at Toledo, just as he did in eight season at Green Bay — is one of the most successful coaches in the nation. Take away his first year at Green Bay and his first two at Toledo — which is fair given the disasters he inherited — and he’s 170-108 in league play.
Then, there’s the postseason.
Kowalczyk is 13-17 in conference tournament games and his teams have lost as the higher seed seven times. He has not been to the NCAA tournament.
I asked him about the disconnect, and if there was something holding his teams back from maximizing their potential in the month in which — fair or not — legacies are forged.
Basically, he did not quite agree with the premise, noting the breaks of March.
“We've played really well well here at times,” Kowalczyk said of Cleveland.
Chances are the Rockets will again, too.
Kowalczyk and his program are too good.
Too good to keep experiencing nights like Friday, to keep taking names from November to February and breaking hearts when it counts.
First Published March 13, 2021, 3:34 a.m.
