Teams: Syracuse Orange (4-0) vs. Toledo Rockets (3-0)
Day & Time: Wednesday, November 22, 2017, 7 p.m. ET
Location: Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.
Line: N/A just yet
TV/Streaming: ACC Network Extra/WatchESPN
Radio: Syracuse IMG Network, WAER 88.3, Sirius 93/XM 193
Toledo blog: Hustle Belt
Rivalry: 2-0, Syracuse leads
Current Streak: 2, Orange (duh.)
First Meeting: The two teams met in something called the National Collegiate Campus Basketball Tournament in 1951 on at Bradley University. Syracuse won 69-52 (nice), led by center Ted Miller who had a team-high 18 points. SU would end up winning the whole (largely meaningless) event a couple days later after beating the hosts, Bradley, by one point.
Last Meeting: These two haven’t met up since 1990 -- an 84-68 victory for Syracuse in the first round of the Maui Invitational. The Orangemen completely outpaced Toledo with Dave Johnson and Billy Owens at the reins. While the former chipped in 16 points, the latter had 16 boards on the game. Syracuse would end up winning the event later that week with a three-point triumph over Indiana. It wasn’t justice for 1987, but it was satisfying nonetheless.
Head Coaches: SU: Jim Boeheim (42nd year, 1,008-357); Toledo: Tod Kowalczyk (8th year, 122-110)
Coach Bio: Kowalczyk played for Minnesota-Duluth in the 80s, then headed right the bench for his alma mater thereafter. He bounced around a bunch of different assistant gigs before finally getting a shot to run his own program in 2002, when he took over Green Bay. His increasing success (but lack of postseason reward for it) led to him leaving for Toledo in 2010. Since taking over the Rockets, he’s had fleeting success. Toledo won the MAC West in 2013 and 2014 (yes, they still do divisions in basketball for some dumb reason), and made the CBI last year. He’s also missing a ‘d’ at the end of his first name.
Last Year: Toledo managed to stick around .500 all year, really. After wrapping up non-conference play at 7-6, they went 9-9 in the MAC. The Rockets fell in the MAC quarterfinals to Ohio, then fell to George Washington in the first round of the CBI to finish 17-17. It was their first postseason invite since the 2014 NIT.
Last Game: Toledo torched Oakland (something we’re familiar with), 87-74 a few days ago. The Rockets used a strong mid-game surge to pull away for good, while shooting about 49 percent from the field. They failed to really connect on threes, but were accurate from the charity stripe and made their shots inside the arc. Toledo also managed six blocks on Oakland.
"Fear Me, I've Killed Hundreds of Timelords": Toledo’s yet another team with two 20-point scorers on the roster, in Jaelan Sanford and (Colorado transfer) Tre’Shaun Fletcher — and Sanford is incredibly efficient, hitting over 52 percent of his shots en route to 23.3 points per game. However, Nate Navigato may be the player that gives Syracuse the most problems on Wednesday night. He’s 8-of-21 threes and is accurate from the free throw line. Seems like the sort of pesky that could annoy this zone for a little bit, at least.
If Syracuse Wins: Then its wins keep increasing in quality this year, which is nice. It doesn’t mean we’re automatically going to take down a team like Kansas or Maryland. But at least we’ve avoided the upset to this point and have seen our young talent not only come along well, but win games.
If Syracuse Loses: Not ideal at all, since we still have several difficult non-conference games to go and a tough ACC slate as well.
Fun Fact No. 1: Toledo has the ninth-longest current NCAA Tournament drought of Division I programs that have made the Big Dance at least once. The Rockets were last in the NCAAs in 1980 — a stretch lasting 37 years now.
Fun Fact No. 2: This isn’t necessarily “fun,” but Kowalczyk has been part of two coaching staffs that beat the Orange -- both the 1997-98 and 1998-99 Rutgers Scarlet Knights managed to best SU. Kowalczyk Was an assistant each time.