CLEVELAND – Going to a Mid-American Conference basketball title game is like going to a bar with an outgoing, occasionally whimsical friend, or experiencing a Quentin Tarantino movie for the first time. Once you get an hour and a half into the night, you have no clue what's going to happen, but you're 100% confident you'll have a good time.
The sleep-resistant MAC put on another epic Saturday, as Akron defeated Toledo to secure a ticket to the 2026 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. A game that once looked like a rout tightened quickly, with neither team leading by more than four over the final 10 minutes.
Over the next 10, 20, even 30 years, Zips fans will remember the name Shammah Scott. As a 13-point scorer this season, the guard's been a solid option for Akron off the bench, but his contributions were occasionally drowned out on a team with Tavari Johnson and Amani Lyles.
Forget him no longer. With 10 seconds left and the game knotted up at 76, Scott slowly dribbled in place, sizing up Toledo guard Mynor Strong. The possession seemed to stagnate.
In an instant, Scott picked up his dribble and stepped to his left. Strong was right there, lifting up his left arm below the graduate student's release. It was a contest Toledo head coach Tod Kowalczyk could appreciate postgame, a shot quite far even for the 43% 3-point shooter.
The Zips are still on top of the MAC. They have three-peated for the first time in MAC Tournament history, and for that, they have Scott to thank.
"We wanted to give ourselves the best chance to have the last shot," Akron head coach John Groce said. "With the ball in [Scott's] hands, obviously we trust him, his teammates trust him and he made a big shot."
After Scott's late-game heroics, Kowalczyk's philosophy was simple: don't call a timeout, don't let Akron's defense get set. Leroy Blyden Jr. took the inbound and sprinted up the floor, getting just above halfcourt before Evan Mahaffey poked the ball out of his hands.
Needing to get some sort of shot up, 6-foot-10 Austin Parks – three career 3-pointers made – picked up, turned around and heaved. In what was almost a hallmark of March magic, the shot was inches wide, bouncing high off the back iron as the buzzer sounded. There was jubilation on one side, heartbreak on the other.
"I don't think I'll ever get over this loss," Kowalczyk said. " ... On this stage, what you're playing for, the history of Toledo, the history of Tod Kowalczyk too. You can wrap it all up in one."
Three-point variance can be fickle in the college game, and it reared its ugly head in the most important game of the season for both sides. This time, the advantage went to the Rockets, who shot an exceptional 42% from behind the arc. With Sonny Wilson and Leroy Blyden Jr. in the backcourt, it didn't take 15 seconds of dribbling for the pair to make something happen on offense. It only took a moment before they used their exceptional burst to draw Zips toward them. From there, it was easy to find freshly-open shooters.
The looks in rhythm fell for nearly every Toledo shooter early. Wing Sean Craig stepped into 9 points before the first media timeout, converting on some of his best scoring opportunities of the tournament. Off good perimeter play on both ends, the Rockets jumped out to an early double-digit lead.
On the other side, now dealing with a significant deficit for the second conference title game in a row, the No. 8 3-point shooting team in the nation had to adjust to a rare cold streak. For just the sixth time this season, Groce's squad shot under 30% from deep, missing badly on looks that weren't any trickier than usual.
Never fear: Akron pivoted easily to a paint-heavy approach. In the second half, 30 of the Zips' 49 points came down low, a testament to the team's offensive versatility. Johnson used his own speed to attack at the right angles, and when Rockets stepped up, Lyles was a good safety valve.
Before Scott could hit his miraculous shot, Johnson had to tie the game in the first place. There was just over a minute to play when the guard took a pass in the right corner and drove to his right, just as he had all game long. With a defender on his hip, Johnson kept his lead to the hole, where he made a reverse layup look much simpler than it is in that moment.
As Akron built back from its deficit, it was all hands on deck: fitting for a team that boasts so much depth. Guard Sharron Young fought like no other on defense, battling through a first-half tweak to make game-changing plays. Evan Mahaffey was active on both ends, using his length to finish at the rim. Scott and Eric Mahaffey both made shots that weren't falling over the first 20 minutes. Within 3:30 midway through the second half, the Zips turned a 10-point deficit into a four-point lead.
"Whatever gets thrown our way, we respond to it appropriately," Groce said. "We don't worry about what happened previously. That's hard for 18-to-22 year olds to learn, but our older guys really get it, they embody that and then obviously they pass that [along] to the younger guys."
With tonight's result, Toledo remains a snakebitten college basketball program. The Rockets won the first edition of the MAC Tournament in 1980, and they've been back to the title game seven times since. They've lost all seven, and Kowalczyk remains a 450-win coach with zero NCAA Tournament appearances.
Akron, on the other hand, is off to its fourth Big Dance in five seasons. The Zips have benefitted from an intentional foul blunder, a late-game collapse and a miracle three over their past three conference title games. They've won them all, and now they're back in position for the next step: their first ever NCAA Tournament win.