{"id":84947,"date":"2024-03-09T11:35:31","date_gmt":"2024-03-09T15:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=84947"},"modified":"2024-03-12T08:49:06","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T12:49:06","slug":"champions-again-toledo-captures-fourth-straight-outright-mac-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/03_09_2024\/champions-again-toledo-captures-fourth-straight-outright-mac-title","title":{"rendered":"Champions Again: Toledo Men Claim Fourth Straight Outright MAC Title"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toledo men’s basketball team continued its historical run Friday night by capturing its fourth consecutive outright Mid-American Conference title with an 86-71 victory over Kent State before 6,520 fans in Savage Arena. The Rockets (20-11, 14-4 MAC) are just the second program ever to win four straight league titles, joining the University of Cincinnati which won four straight (1948-51) in the infancy of the conference.<\/p>\n

Toledo entered the day tied for first place with Akron (21-10, 13-15). However, the Zips dropped a 90-84 decision at Western Michigan earlier in the evening to give UT the opportunity take sole possession of another crown.<\/p>\n

\"The

The Toledo men’s basketball team celebrate after beating Kent State, 86-71, to capture the team\u2019s fourth consecutive outright Mid-American Conference title.<\/p><\/div>\n

“I’m proud of this team and how we weathered a lot of storms and won a fourth straight outright championship,” Head Coach\u00a0Tod Kowalczyk\u00a0said. “Celebrations like this never get old. This is a special group.”<\/p>\n

The Rockets will be the No. 1 seed in next week’s MAC Tournament and will meet the No. 8 Golden Flashes (15-16, 8-10 MAC) again in a quarterfinal match-up on Thursday, March 14, at 11 a.m. in Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. For more information or to purchase MAC Tournament tickets, please visit\u00a0utrockets.com\/mactournament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Juniors\u00a0Ra’Heim Moss\u00a0and\u00a0Dante Maddox Jr.\u00a0led Toledo offensively with 21 and 18 points, respectively. The duo was joined in double figures by junior Andre Lorentsson (13 pts.) and redshirt freshman\u00a0Javan Simmons\u00a0(10 pts.).<\/p>\n

Simmons also grabbed a team-high eight rebounds to help the Rockets to a 35-34 advantage on the glass.<\/p>\n

Toledo was efficient offensively with a 51.8 FG%, a 41.7 three-point FG% (10-of-24) and an 81.8 FT%.\u00a0The Rockets also collected 17 assists with Moss dishing out a team-high seven.<\/p>\n

UT limited Kent State to a 42.4 shooting mark and a 34.8% clip from three-point range.<\/p>\n

Toledo never trailed in the contest and held a 36-26 halftime advantage. The Rockets’ largest lead in the contest was 17 points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rockets post 86-71 win over Kent State to earn No. 1 seed in the MAC Tournament, which begins Thursday in Cleveland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":84948,"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\/84947"}],"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=84947"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84963,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84947\/revisions\/84963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}