CLEVELAND — Cheers in the regular season. Tears in Cleveland.
For the University of Toledo, it is a song without a dance its teams and fans know all too well, the joy of the marathon yielding to the heartbreak of the sprint and an acute March affliction of seasonal affective disorder.
The midnight blues.
So it went again Friday as Toledo’s week from basketball hell continued at the Mid-American Conference tournament.
A day after the top-seeded men clanked to a first-round loss against Kent State, the top-seeded women were stunned by Buffalo in the semifinals, all but assuring the Rockets’ remarkable senior class — headlined by league players of the year past (Quinesha Lockett) and present (Sophia Wiard) — will not go out with a return trip to the NCAA tournament.