{"id":176024,"date":"2026-03-03T06:19:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T06:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/176024\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T06:19:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T06:19:18","slug":"no-19-miami-ohio-looks-to-keep-its-cool-vs-rival-toledo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/176024\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 19 Miami (Ohio) looks to keep its cool vs. rival Toledo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After surviving a major scare on the road, unbeaten No. 19 Miami (Ohio) returns home to battle Mid-American Conference rival <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-basketball\/teams\/TOLEDO\/toledo-rockets\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Toledo<\/a> on Tuesday night in Oxford, Ohio.<\/p>\n<p>Miami (29-0, 16-0 MAC) needed a last-second layup from backup point guard Trey Perry to fend off 10-win Western Michigan 69-67 on the road Friday night to remain as the only undefeated team in Division I men&#8217;s basketball. The RedHawks have regular-season games remaining against Toledo and at Ohio on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Winner of three straight, Toledo (16-13, 10-6) will be looking to avenge an 87-73 home loss to Miami on Jan. 9.<\/p>\n<p>Already without starting point guard Evan Ipsaro due to a torn ACL in late December, the RedHawks played Friday&#8217;s game without the services of assists leader Luke Skaljac (4.8 per game) due to a wrist injury.<\/p>\n<p>Perry, a true freshman, made his first career start Friday with Skaljac out of the lineup. Miami head coach Travis Steele indicated after Friday&#8217;s game that the injury to Skaljac was minor, and he was hopeful the point guard would return Tuesday against Toledo.<\/p>\n<p>Steele will be focusing on keeping his cool Tuesday after losing it heading into halftime facing a four-point deficit at Western Michigan. He berated officials and then was called for a technical on the way to the locker room. Steele stormed off the court and knocked over a DJ stand in the hallway.<\/p>\n<p>Miami erased a nine-point deficit with under seven minutes remaining to keep its historic run alive.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I got to be better at halftime from being honest, like I can&#8217;t lose my mind,&#8221; Steele said after the game. &#8220;I got a technical foul walking off the court; I got to be better. But our group is unflappable. It&#8217;s calm, cool, collected. It&#8217;s very, very even, the entire time, even during tight moments.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You hear our guys voices in the huddles. Player-led teams are way better than coach-led teams, so just our guys&#8217; ability to execute, our guys have a lot of confidence in those moments.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Peter Suder, the RedHawks&#8217; leading scorer (14.7 ppg), led the way with 18, Almar Atlason added 16 and Perry had 14 in the dramatic win.<\/p>\n<p>Already with a school-record 29 wins, Miami is just the fourth Division I team since 2000 to enter March undefeated, joining Wichita State (2013-14), Kentucky (2014-15) and Gonzaga (2020-21), per ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>The Rockets are coming off a 79-67 win over Ohio on Saturday, as Leroy Blyden Jr. scored a game-high 22 points and Sonny Wilson added 21 to record their third straight win.<\/p>\n<p>Toledo built a 65-55 second-half lead but had to hold off Ohio, which closed within 67-61 with 4:08 remaining. But Blyden had a tip-in, Austin Parks powered in a dunk and Wilson added a pair of free throws for a 73-61 lead with 2:20 remaining to allow Toledo to hang on.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was a gutty win for us, and we just keep getting better,&#8221; Toledo coach Tod Kowalczyk said. &#8220;We played really well in the first half and could have had a bigger lead if we had finished around the basket. Our guards came up with some big plays down the stretch when we needed them to. That&#8217;s what you need to win games on the road late in the season.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Field Level Media<\/p>\n<p class=\"StatsincCopyrightTwo\">\n    Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After surviving a major scare on the road, unbeaten No. 19 Miami (Ohio) returns home to battle Mid-American&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8294,123,26238,125,124,29024],"class_list":["post-176024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-college-basketball","tag-miami","tag-miami-ohio-redhawks","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-toledo-rockets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}