{"id":32317,"date":"2014-12-29T13:49:42","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T18:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/utnews.utoledo.edu\/?p=32317"},"modified":"2014-12-29T13:49:42","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T18:49:42","slug":"mens-basketball-team-to-play-duke-dec-29-in-game-televised-on-espn2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/12_29_2014\/mens-basketball-team-to-play-duke-dec-29-in-game-televised-on-espn2","title":{"rendered":"Men’s basketball team to play Duke Dec. 29 in game televised on ESPN2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toledo men\u2019s basketball team (7-4) will face its biggest challenge of the 2014-15 campaign when it takes on No. 2 Duke (10-0) Monday, Dec. 29, at 7 p.m. <\/p>\n

\"thumb-rocket-color-logo\"<\/a>The contest will be played at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C., and be televised on ESPN2.<\/p>\n

The Rockets are riding a season-high five-game winning streak following an 83-69 road victory over McNeese State Dec. 20. <\/p>\n

The Blue Devils have been idle since a 66-56 triumph over Connecticut Dec. 18 and have an NCAA-best 38-game home-court winning streak.<\/p>\n

Toledo is in its 100th year of basketball and the preseason pick to win the Mid-American Conference by numerous publications. UT is in search of its first NCAA Tournament berth since 1980 after posting a school-record 27-7 win-loss mark last year.<\/p>\n

UT Head Coach Tod Kowalczyk has guided the Rockets to a 68-41 (.624) win-loss mark since the start of the 2011-12 season.<\/p>\n

Four of five Rocket starters possess double-figure scoring averages to help Toledo rank second in the MAC with 77.5 points per game.<\/p>\n

A member of the 2015 Bob Cousy Award Watch List, senior guard Julius Brown leads the Rockets and ranks second and third in the MAC, respectively, with a 52.5 three-point field shooting percentage (32 of 61) and 15.9 points per game. <\/p>\n

Also scoring in double figures for UT are senior forward J.D. Weatherspoon (12.6), senior guard Justin Drummond (12.6) and sophomore guard Jonathan Williams (10.9).\u2028<\/p>\n

As of Dec. 25, Toledo ranked sixth nationally with a MAC-best 76.7 free-throw percentage. Freshman guard Kurt Hall leads the league with a 95.2 mark and is followed by junior center Nathan Boothe (90.9) and Brown (89.5).<\/p>\n

The Blue Devils rank third nationally with their plus-25.2 scoring margin and fourth with a 52.3 field-goal percentage and 1.59 assist\/turnover ratio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watch the Rockets play the Duke Blue Devils in North Carolina Monday, Dec. 29, at 7 p.m. on ESPN2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,5],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}