{"id":71964,"date":"2022-03-07T10:20:05","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T14:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=71964"},"modified":"2022-03-08T09:35:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T13:35:00","slug":"first-place-mens-womens-basketball-close-out-regular-season-with-emphatic-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/03_07_2022\/first-place-mens-womens-basketball-close-out-regular-season-with-emphatic-wins","title":{"rendered":"First-Place Men\u2019s, Women\u2019s Basketball Close Out Regular Season With Emphatic Wins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A season-high 6,712 fans saw Toledo make history on Friday night in Savage Arena as Toledo (25-6, 17-3 MAC) captured back-to-back outright Mid-American Conference titles for the first time ever with a dominating 96-56 triumph over arch-rival Bowling Green.<\/p>\n<p>Toledo will open the 2022 MAC Tournament vs. No. 8 seed Central Michigan on Thursday, March 10, at 11 a.m. in Cleveland&#8217;s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_71965\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Mens-Final-Game-Celebration-MAIN.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-71965\" class=\"wp-image-71965\" src=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Mens-Final-Game-Celebration-MAIN.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Mens-Final-Game-Celebration-MAIN.jpg 748w, https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Mens-Final-Game-Celebration-MAIN-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-71965\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toledo will open the 2022 MAC Tournament vs. No. 8 seed Central Michigan on Thursday at 11 a.m. in Cleveland&#8217;s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>And on Saturday, the first-place Toledo women&#8217;s basketball team ended its regular season at home with a 74-61 win over Western Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>Toledo will face No. 8 Ohio in the first round of the MAC Tournament on Wednesday, March 9, at 11 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>For the men\u2019s team, the 25 wins are tied for second in program history with the 2018-19 squad. In addition, Toledo&#8217;s 40-point victory was its largest ever over the Falcons.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Winning back-to-back titles is a great accomplishment and I&#8217;m proud of our guys and staff,&#8221; Head Coach Tod Kowalczyk said. &#8220;It was a great way to end our home season. Our fan base is awesome, and I think they really appreciated this team and how they played for each other.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>All five starters scored in double-figures for the Rockets and combined to shoot an amazing 68.8 percent (33-of-48).<\/p>\n<p>Junior\u00a0JT Shumate\u00a0paced Toledo with 22 points and finished a nearly perfect 8-of-9 from the field. Junior\u00a0Setric Millner Jr.\u00a0poured in 19 points, while sophomore\u00a0Ryan Rollins\u00a0tallied 18 points. Redshirt freshman\u00a0Ra&#8217;Heim Moss\u00a0registered his third double-double with 15 points, 10 rebounds and a career-high seven assists. Junior\u00a0RayJ Dennis\u00a0nearly notched a double-double as well, finishing with 12 points and a career-high nine assists.<\/p>\n<p>Toledo shot 57.8% from the field and was a scorching 12-of-24 from three-point range. The Rockets dished out a season-high 25 assists and committed only eight turnovers.<\/p>\n<p>The Falcons could only muster a 35.4 shooting mark en route to a season-low point total. Senior Daeqwon Plowden paced the Falcons with 19 points.<\/p>\n<p>Toledo took control midway through the first half and held a 47-28 halftime lead. Bowling Green never threatened in the second half as the Rockets led by as many as 44 points.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_71966\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Womens-BBall-Home-Finale-STORY.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-71966\" class=\"size-full wp-image-71966\" src=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Womens-BBall-Home-Finale-STORY.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"474\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Womens-BBall-Home-Finale-STORY.jpg 500w, https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Womens-BBall-Home-Finale-STORY-300x284.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-71966\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Junior Quinesha Lockett scored 15 points in the Rockets&#8217; 74-61 win over Western Michigan. Toledo will face No. 8 Ohio in the first round of the MAC Tournament on Wednesday at 11 a.m.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For the women\u2019s team, the Rockets have now reached the 25-win plateau for the 12th\u00a0time in program history and the first time since the 2016-17 season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We knew today would be a fight,&#8221; head coach\u00a0Tricia Cullop\u00a0said. &#8220;I was really proud of how well we shared the ball today. It was great to see so many players score in double figures, or be close to double figures. I thought we did a great job on the boards as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe could have done a better job taking care of the basketball, but you have to give credit to Western Michigan&#8217;s defense as well. I thought it was a good game to help us fine-tune some things before we head to Cleveland.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the game, Toledo honored two student-athletes and one manager during its Senior Day presentation. Seniors\u00a0Mariah Copeland\u00a0and\u00a0Lexi Lance\u00a0as well as student manager\u00a0Jakob Stober\u00a0were honored before the game for their contributions to Toledo Women&#8217;s Basketball.<\/p>\n<p>Fans interested in purchasing tickets to the MAC Tournament can visit\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/utrockets.com\/sports\/2018\/3\/7\/mac-basketball-central-2018.aspx\">utrockets.com\/MACTournament<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/03_07_2022\/first-place-mens-womens-basketball-close-out-regular-season-with-emphatic-wins\"><img width=\"120\" height=\"120\" src=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Mens-Final-Game-Celebration-MAIN-150x150.jpg\" class=\"alignright tfe wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a><p>Both teams enter this week\u2019s MAC Tournament as No. 1 seeds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":71965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,56,1,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71964"}],"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\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71964"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71979,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71964\/revisions\/71979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}