The year is 2010. After a 5-7 season, Toledo head coach Tim Beckman improves the Rockets to an 8-5 record, finishing 7-1 in MAC play. But a 65-30 loss to Northern Illinois (8-0 in MAC play) prevented Toledo from reaching Detroit for the conference championship, a game Toledo last received an invite to in 2005.
2011 rolls around, and Beckman leads the Rockets to an improved 9-4 record, finishing 7-1 in conference once again. But the NIU Huskies earned the tiebreaker in dramatic 63-60 fashion — one of the most iconic games in midweek MACtion history. Toledo is once again watching the conference champion get crowned from home on the first weekend of December.