Time will tell if the Toledo women’s basketball team enjoys another storybook run this March.
But it sure feels like the magic is starting to return, no?
I think of the Rockets and I think of the formula for a good thriller.
A worthy villain. Unexpected dramatic tension. The good guy saves the day.
Add it up, and you have box-office gold, or just maybe — for Toledo fans — another midnight blue and gold hit.
On a thundering Saturday at Savage Arena, in a showdown of first-place rivals, the Rockets let the imagination run wild with their 70-48 dismantling of Ball State, issuing a statement so loud you could hear it above the din of 5,556 screaming supporters.
The road to the Mid-American Conference championship ... it still runs through Toledo.
“If you had to peak at a certain time this season, I'd rather do it right now and have people grumbling a couple months ago,” coach Tricia Cullop said. “I'd really rather have that. I’ll take that, because I'd rather see a team peak at the right time. I’m not saying we're there. We have a lot of things to improve upon, but I will say I'm really, really pleased with the way we're starting to play.”
And never were they better than Saturday, resembling exactly the kind of Rockets team we expected all along.
Maybe that’s not fair. It’s just reality.
Flash back a few months, and I suspect we all thought Toledo would sail smoothly through the season. It brought back all five starters from the team that last season won its second straight MAC title and beat Iowa State in the NCAA tournament. The Rockets were the unanimous conference favorite.
Then …
Basketball happened.
Toledo felt the impact of a shortened bench — unsurprisingly, the graduation of star sixth man Jayda Jansen was a big loss — and the screenwriters who made sure to add a few twists to the script. That included a couple key injuries — including to reigning league player of the year Quinesha Lockett, who missed more than a month with a knee strain — and a challenger even more formidable than perhaps anticipated.
Credit where due: Ball State (23-4, 12-2) isn’t on the fringe of the national polls for nothing. The Cardinals shoot the lights out (averaging 8.5 3s per game), guard like crazy (they added Nyla Hampton, the league defensive player of the year at Bowling Green last season), and proved their chops against a nonconference schedule that included four power-conference opponents. They lost just two of those games, falling to UConn and Notre Dame.
Ball State is really good, and, back in January, it appeared it might even be better than Toledo.
When the Rockets lost 65-51 in Muncie, it was their fourth defeat of a season that had not gone smoothly at all. They were undeniably at a crossroads.
“I think a lot of people counted us out,” Cullop said.
That might be a stretch, but, from that day, the Rockets have traveled the road for the better.
They kept getting healthier and deeper and more confident, winning eight straight games until, next thing you knew, here they were facing the Cardinals again, ready as ever.
It would not quite be accurate to call what happened next a wire-to-wire beating.
Early on, Toledo (21-4, 13-1) had its fans tired from standing for so long — except not for the usual reasons. This time, it was because, as always, the expectant home crowd remained on its feet until the Rockets get on the board, and on Saturday, it took a minute or five. They did not score until Lockett splashed in a jumper with 5:24 left in the first quarter. (For all the missed layups out of the gate, I sentence both teams to a thousand Mikan drills.)
But it was all Toledo the rest of the way.
After a 1-of-10 start, the Rockets — led by hometown star Sammi Mikonowicz’s career-high-tying 24 points — made 27 of their final 51 shots. And the sizzle was just the start of it.
What’s more, with wave after wave of help coming from a rotation that now goes nine deep, Toledo muscled Ball State clear out of Lucas County, outrebounding the visitors 47-26 and holding them to 16 points in the first half. I’ve seen bus bathrooms that featured more room to maneuver than the Rockets’ defense gave Ball State.
“You could definitely tell we came out with some fire,” Mikonowicz said.
More than that, you could begin to see a Rockets team putting it all together.
A team that is starting to look a lot like that indomitable group from a year ago, and maybe even better.
We’ll see, but this sequel sure is starting to get good.
“We have a chip on our shoulder and we're ready to play and finish this season strong,” Cullop said. “I've always believed in this team, and I continue to believe that they can accomplish great things if they play together.
“And they played really well together today.”
First Published February 25, 2024, 1:51 a.m.
