Biggest regular season game since 2013?
It certainly seems like it to me.
Maybe I'm trying to justify my lack of optimism going in, but the game doesn't feel that important in the grand scheme of things. A regular season championship is nice, but just ask Jim Christian how memorable it is. As long as Ohio heads to Cleveland with one of the top three seeds, the path to a tournament berth is pretty similar. No matter what, if Toledo and Ohio play like they are capable of playing in Cleveland, they'll end up facing off there for what will be a truly big game.
I'm not totally discounting tomorrow. I'd like to see them beat Toledo and play much better than they did in Athens. Regular season championships are nice, etc. But with no byes on offer in Cleveland and not a lot separating seeds 6-8 (or 3-5 for that matter), a #1 seed doesn't really mean that much.
Totally get what you are saying. I don't put too much stock into a regular season MAC championship, but it is rarified air for this program. The banner would look good in the Convo. Christian didn't win it outright...he shared it with Akron. At least with winning MAC regular season title, you are guaranteed NIT...but we always have bigger goals than that.
If win Tuesday, great.
If we don't, nobody is panicking.
It all comes down to three special days in Cleveland.
Same thing every year.
Yeah, you can look at this way:
Winning, of course, is great, but if we lose, we can still at least tie Toledo for first by winning out. That would get us the number 2 seed in Cleveland.
In addition, Toledo has lost to two somewhat mediocre teams this season (Kent, BSU, currently 4th and 6th in the MAC). They still have Kent and Buffalo plus some other mediocre teams on their schedule that could bite them. So beating Toledo isn't the only path to a MAC regular season championship for Ohio.