Was this the end? Or the beginning?
For the Toledo women’s basketball team, call it both.
On a raucous Monday night at Savage Arena, the Rockets’ season might have faded to black with a 73-71 overtime loss to Middle Tennessee State in the quarterfinals of the WNIT.
But I suspect we can all agree: The thrilling finale felt more like a prelude than a postscript.
After time finally ran out on this historic ride — after a Toledo team that won a school-record-matching 29 games came up one aching basket short and the sweat mixed with tears — coach Tricia Cullop grabbed the public address mic from the courtside scorer’s table and addressed the crowd of 4,083.
She thanked the fans for their support, then urged: “I need you to buy season tickets next year, because this team is coming back!”
One last time, the building roared.
“I hope everybody that was in the arena tonight goes and buys season tickets as soon as those tickets are available,” she said later, “because they’re going to be in for a treat.”
It shouldn’t be a hard sell.
With every contributor set to return, Monday was but another preview of the fun to come, the Rockets making Toledo proud to the end.
It wasn’t always pretty, to put it nicely.
The Rockets committed 23 turnovers — almost double their season average — and had no answer in the second half for the most unlikely of heroes.
And I mean no answer.
Middle Tennessee freshman Anastasiia Boldyreva, a 6-6 post from Moscow by way of a prep school aptly named Twice Named Hero of the Soviet Union, was going along fairly quietly, as usual, when, suddenly, she exploded.
After scoring two points in seven minutes in the first half, Boldyreva — who averaged 7.2 points in 17 minutes per game this season — turned into the best post talent since Lisa Leslie. With a feathery touch and flawless footwork, she poured in one basket after another, sinking 12 of 17 field goals for 26 points in the second half and overtime, leaving Cullop in a helpless bind.
The coach could have — and, ultimately, probably should have — sent an extra defender to help Toledo centers Jessica Cook and Hannah Noveroske. Problem was, as Cullop later said, you’re darned either way. Double the post and you’re leaving open a sharpshooter on a Blue Raiders teams that bombs 3s with impunity, and at a clip (33 percent) that led Conference USA.
It was a no-win scenario, and the Rockets lost it.
Yet, even so, Toledo kept coming, kept answering.
And, in some ways, that so much went wrong and the home team still had a golden chance to win it in the final seconds was just more validation of what made this unrelenting group so special.
There was reserve guard Jayda Jansen wheeling (12 points), there was Sophia Wiard dealing (eight assists), and, of course, there was Sammi Mikonowicz doing it all. Playing the entire 45 minutes, the Rossford native damn near willed the Rockets home, on fumes or not, sinking one big 3 and grabbing one big rebound after another (17 points, 13 rebounds).
Your heart broke for Mikonowicz, when after she was fouled on a 3-point attempt with the Rockets up one and 7 seconds left in regulation, she missed two out of three free throws that could have secured the game.
And it broke again for forward Nan Garcia, who with UT down one in the final seconds of overtime saw a driving layup she makes nine out of 10 times rim out.
But that’s basketball.
“If it was going to end,” Cullop said, “I’m glad it was that way with that kind of effort, with that kind of desire. You can walk away saying we gave it everything we had.”
Everyone knew it, too. When the buzzer sounded, the crowd could do nothing but stand and cheer, feting a team that came out of nowhere — the Rockets were picked eighth in the preseason Mid-American Conference poll — to believe it could go anywhere.
“This seems like a punch in the face,” guard Khera Goss said, “but I also feel a joy in my heart, because I know we’re all coming back, and I’m really looking forward to the future.”
Added Mikonowicz: “This will just add fuel to the fire.”
In that case, expect a full-blown blaze.
If that sounds like a lot, consider just how good this young team came to be as the season went on. By Selection Sunday, this was a group —one bad day at the Mid-American Conference tournament be damned — that absolutely deserved an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
If you’ll permit me to wallop a dead horse, Toledo went 19-1 in what the NET rated as the 11th-strongest of 32 conferences, and, by the verdict of the jurors who aren’t in the bag for the power leagues — the AP voters — were ranked 34th in the nation.
But that’s neither here nor there anymore.
Call Monday the end of the beginning.
“We’re only going to get better,” Cullop said. “We’re going to to challenge our [players] with some things to take this program to another level and we’re going to beef up our schedule to make it a little bit tougher, to make it hard for people to tell us we don’t belong somewhere.”
First Published March 29, 2022, 3:27 a.m.
