{"id":97650,"date":"2026-03-13T08:56:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T12:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=97650"},"modified":"2026-03-16T08:42:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T12:42:56","slug":"mac-freshman-of-the-year-leads-rockets-past-bowling-green-77-76-in-tournament-quarterfinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/03_13_2026\/mac-freshman-of-the-year-leads-rockets-past-bowling-green-77-76-in-tournament-quarterfinals","title":{"rendered":"MAC Freshman of the Year Leads Rockets Past Bowling Green, 77-76, in Tournament Quarterfinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Freshman\u00a0Leroy Blyden Jr.\u00a0scored 17 of his game-high 23 points in the second half to lead the Toledo men’s basketball team to a 77-76 victory over Bowling Green in MAC Tournament quarterfinal action at Rocket Arena in Cleveland on Thursday.<\/p>\n

No. 4 seed Toledo (18-14) survived a scare when No. 5 seed Bowling Green (18-14) missed a driving layup at the buzzer.<\/p>\n

\"A

Freshman Leroy Blyden Jr. scored 17 of his 23 points in the second half in Toledo’s 77-76 win over Bowling Green.<\/p><\/div>\n

With the victory, the Rockets now advance to a semifinal matchup on today, March 13, at 5 p.m., with No. 8 seed UMass (17-15), which defeated No. 1 seed Miami, 87-83. The game will be televised on CBS Sports Network and will also be carried on the Rocket Radio Network.<\/p>\n

Blyden, the MAC Freshman of the Year, made 8-of-10 shots from the field, 4-of-4 from three-point range and added six rebounds. Junior\u00a0Sonny Wilson\u00a0added 12 points, and senior\u00a0Sean Craig, junior\u00a0Austin Parks\u00a0and sophomore\u00a0Mynor Strong\u00a0put up 10 points apiece. As a team, Toledo shot 31-of-61 (50.8%), including 8-of-16 from three-point range.<\/p>\n

Toledo built a 12-point lead in the first half before BGSU rallied to take a 38-37 halftime margin. Toledo responded to take a 71-60 lead before the Falcons rallied to go ahead, 74-73, with 44 seconds left. Blyden and Wilson answered with a pair of free throws each in the waning seconds that stood up as the winning points.<\/p>\n

“Overall, just proud of our effort. I thought we had a great start, though we gave up the 12-point lead in\u00a0the first half,\u201d said Head Coach Tod Kowalczyk. \u201cI can’t say enough about these two guards (Blyden and Wilson). They are special. We didn’t play great, but we found a way to win. That’s been a motto for us. Those special situations at the end were on point.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"A<\/a>

Leroy Blyden Jr. scored 17 of game-high 23 points in second half as Toledo moves into semifinal matchup with UMass today at 5 p.m. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":97651,"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\/97650"}],"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=97650"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97655,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97650\/revisions\/97655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}