Toledo Record Book
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TOLEDO RECORD BOOK ROCKET HISTORY - 1-33 ROCKET RECORDS - 34-91 Rocket Tradition & Dateline ............................1-4 All-Time Results, 1915-2020 .......................34-45 The Field House ...................................................5-6 Attendance Records ........................................... 44 MAC Championship Teams .............................7-8 All-Time Toledo Coaches ................................... 46 Rocket Basketball - From A to Z ................. 9-14 Coaching Records .........................................47-48 All-Time Letterwinners ................................15-16 All-Time Win-Loss Record ................................. 48 All-Time Captains ................................................. 17 Individual Records ........................................49-54 NBA/ABA Draft Selections ................................ 18 Team Records ..................................................55-58 All-America/First-Team All-MAC Honors .......... 19 Savage Arena Records .................................59-61 Rocket Honors ...................................................... 20 Year-by-Year Starters ....................................62-64 1,000-Point Club .................................................. 21 Margins of Victory/Defeat ................................ 65 Toledo MAC Tournament History .................. 22 Annual Statistical Leaders ..........................66-68 Post-Season Records/100-Point Games .......... 23 Player Statistical Listing ...............................69-91 Toledo in the NCAA Tournament .............24-27 Toledo in the NIT ............................................27-32 UT Varsity ‘T’ Hall of Fame ................................. 33 MEN’S BASKETBALL ON SOCIAL MEDIA UTRockets UToledoRockets @ToledoRockets UTRockets @ToledoMBB ToledoMBB @UTSteveEaston @Coach_Kowalczyk ROCKET BASKETBALL TRADITIONS • Toledo is in its 106th year of basketball, first fielding a team in 1915-16. • The Rockets sport an all-time record of 1,473-1,095 (.574). • Toledo has won 20 games or more in a season on 22 occasions, including four times in the last seven years. • The Rockets have won EIGHT MAC titles (1953-54, 1966-67, 1971-72, 1978-79, 1978-79, 1980-81, 2006-07 and 2013-14) and EIGHT MAC West Division titles (1998-99, 1999-2000, 2004-05, 2006-07, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2017-18 and 2018-19). • Toledo has won a school-record 27 games in the 2013-14 campaign, a total that ranks fourth in Mid-American Conference history. Head Coach Tod Kowalczyk has led the • The Rockets has posted 26 consecutive winning seasons from 1959 to 1984. Rockets to the third-most wins in the MAC over the last seven years with a • Toledo boasts 56 first-team Academic All-MAC andNINE Academic All-America honorees. 146-86 (.629) win-loss mark. • The Rockets have had a player achieve first-team All-MAC honors 37 times, including one — Rian Pearson (2012-13), Julius Brown (2013-14, 2014-15), Nathan Boothe (2015-16), Tre’Shaun Fletcher (2017-18) and Jaelan Sanford (2018-19) — in six of the last eight years. • Toledo has had FOUR different players — Chuck Chukovits (1938-39), Bob Gerber (1941- 42), Steve Mix (1969), Tre’Shaun Fletcher (2018) — achieve All-America status. • The Rockets has played in 17 national post-season tournaments. • Toledo sports a 469-189 record (.711) in the friendly confines of Savage Arena and was a perfect 15-0 at home in the 2013-14 campaign. • The Rockets have a 576-477 (.547) all-time mark in MAC play. • Toledo was ranked 11th in the finalAssociated Press poll in 1967 and captured its third All-American Steve Mix played 13 years in the NBA and played in the 1975 NBA MAC title that season. All-Star Game. • The Rockets boast numerous legendary players, including Steve Mix, who went on to a 13-year career in the NBA; Chuck Chuckovits, an All-American in 1938-39 and one of the forerunners of the NBA; All-American Bob Gerber, who led the nation in scoring in 1942 and went on to play in the NBA. • Toledo halted the 33-game winning streak of then-defending national champion Indi- ana on December 1, 1976 in the first game in Savage Arena (then Centennial Hall) with a 59-57 victory. • The Rockets have had FOUR players receive first-team All-MAC honors forTHREE consecutive seasons — Phil Martin (1952-54), Steve Mix (1967-69), Tom Kozelko (1971-73) and Greg Stempin (1999-2001). • Toledo has had players named MAC Player of the Year SIX times (Steve Mix, Tom Kozelko twice, Jim Swaney, Harvey Knuckles, Tre’Shaun Fletcher). Tre’Shaun Fletcher was named 2017-18 MAC Player of the Year, the first Rocket to • The Rockets have had players named MAC Freshman of the Year times (Tim Reiser, earn the league’s top honor since 1981. SIX Ken Epperson, Terry Reynolds, Sammy Villegas, Justin Ingram and Julius Brown). UTROCKETS.COM /UTROCKETS @TOLEDOMBB @TOLEDOMBB UTOLEDOROCKETS 1 ROCKET DATELINE 1916 Toledo and Bowling Green play for 1942 Under coach Harold “Andy” Ander- the first time with the Rockets prevailing, son, Toledo thrashes Ohio, 65-39 in the 16-14. Field House, its 35th consecutive win at home. It is the last home game coached 1918 On December 26, Toledo posts its by Anderson, who moves on to coach at first “big” win, a 30-27 victory over Ohio Bowling Green. The Rockets post an in- State at Memorial Hall. The attendance credible 110-13 (.894) home record under is 1,000. Anderson in eight seasons as coach. 1918 Clark “Pinky” Pittenger sets Toledo’s 1942 Bob Gerber sets a national scoring single-game scoring record with 49 record for points in one season, tallying points versus Bluffton. Pittenger makes 532 for an average of 19.0 per game. 19 field goals and 11 “fouls.” He also scores Gerber, a two-time All-America selection 31 against Heidelberg, 38 versus Cleve- (1941-42), later plays in the NBA. land Navy and 43 against Grace Athletic Club of Lima. 1942 Bob Gerber sets an NIT single- game scoring record, tallying 37 points in Toledo’s 82-71 win over Rhode Island. 1943 Toledo’s unbeaten home string Tom Kozelko is the Rockets’ only two-time reaches 40 games before it is snapped MAC Player of the Year. He received award by DePaul (49-40). Incidentally, the streak in the 1971-72 and 1972-73 seasons. had started just after the Blue Demons 1954 Under head coach Jerry Bush, the defeated Toledo in the Field House (47- Rockets win their first MAC title in just 45) in 1941. their third season of competition in the league. Bush compiles a 127-58 (.686) 1943 Known as “Friddle’s Freshmen,” the record at Toledo before taking the head Rockets finish second in the National In- coaching job at Nebraska following the vitational Tournament, then the nation’s season. Bob Gerber set a national scoring record premier post-season event. Burl Friddle, for points in a season when he averaged a high school coach in Indiana, had been 1963 The Rockets knock off No. 1 New 19.0 ppg in the 1941-42 campaign. hired prior to the season to replace Harold York University, 87-74, in Madison Square Anderson, and brought several players Garden. 1925 Toledo wins its first league title, from his prep team to Toledo. The Rockets posting a 13-7 record en route to the knock off Manhattan and Washington 1967 The Rockets win their second Mid- NWOIA championship. and Jefferson, before falling to St. Johns American Conference title, recording in the finals. Attendance is 18,500. an 11-1 mark in league play. Their 23-2 1938 Chuck Chuckovits becomes To- overall record that season is the best in ledo’s first All-American, receiving the 1949 Toledo defeats Michigan, ranked UT history. honor from Converse. He repeats in third in the nation, 57-36. The Rockets 1939. Chuckovits scores 1,189 points finish the season at 22-6. 1967 Toledo finishes the regular season in his career for an average of 17.2 per with a 23-1 record , second only to UCLA, game, an astonishing feat for that era. 1950 In December, Toledo is ranked 10th which goes unbeaten (30-0) in winning George Washington coach Bill Reinhart in the Associated Press poll. The Rockets the national title. Ranked 11th in the final calls Chuckovits “the greatest player I post wins over Texas Tech, Illinois, Villa- UPI poll, the Rockets are upset in the first ever saw. There’s nothing like him in the nova, St. Bonaventure and Louisville en round of the NCAA Tournament, falling East.” (Teams in the East are considered route to a 22-7 record. Toledo finishes the to Virginia Tech. supreme at the time.) 1950-51 season ranked 14th by AP. 1972 Toledo wins its third MAC Champi- 1940 The Rockets finish 24-6, setting onship, sharing the title with Ohio. Tom a team record for most victories in one Kozelko, who leads the league in scoring season. Iowa and Cincinnati are among with an average of 24.9 ppg, is named the Toledo’s victims. MAC Player of the Year. 2 2020-21 RECORD BOOK ROCKET DATELINE 1985 Toledo posts its 26th consecutive winning season, its 20th under head coach Bob Nichols. Nichols wins five MAC titles and a league-record 375 games in his career (1965-87). 1989 Centennial Hall is dedicated as “John F. Savage Hall” in honor of the man who led the drive to build the arena. Savage, a 1952 UToledo graduate, gave generously to the University and the Rockets throughout his life. 1991 The Rockets record the 1,000th win in school history. 1996 Stan Joplin, one-time Rockets’ star Toledo ended defending national champion Indiana’s 33-game winning streak in (1976-79), is named the 16th head coach the inaugural game played in Centennial Hall (now Savage Arena). in program history. 1973 Kozelko averages 21.5 points per 1979 In one of the more glorious games 1998 Casey Shaw earns third-team Aca- game en route to earning MAC player in program history, the Rockets knock demic All-America honors. Shaw is later of the year honors for the second time. off Big Ten co-champion Iowa, 74-72, drafted in the second round by the NBA’s Kozelko finishes his career with 1,561 in the NCAA Mideast Regional.