By Jon Styf
LocalSportsJournal.com
When the top-seeded Toledo women’s basketball team fell 13 points behind Western Michigan in the Mid-American Conference tournament opener, there wasn’t panic. When they trailed Buffalo by 15 in the second round, it was the same.
That’s because they had fifth-year seniors Sophia Wiard and Quinesha Lockett guiding them.
Ultimately, they fell in overtime to Buffalo, but the poise they showed is the reason the pair won back-to-back MAC Player of the Year awards.
That poise isn’t a surprise to anyone from Muskegon.
For years, Wiard showed it by becoming Oakridge’s leading all-time scorer (1,889), assists leader (450) and a softball star. She’s smart, athletic and experienced as the COVID year helped Wiard play more minutes than any Toledo basketball player has while averaging nearly 36 minutes a game over her last four seasons.
This year, Lockett missed six games due to injury. When she was out, Wiard had to become more aggressive shooting and take over more of the scoring load.
She did that and earned MAC Player of the Year honors a year after Lockett did the same in the pair’s first senior season.
“I think that’s why I won player of the year too because, when she went out, I had to step up a little bit,” Wiard said. “She’s a really, really good player.”
In Lockett’s first game back, Wiard scored 40 at Kent State. She said she didn’t notice she had scored so many until she looked at the scoreboard and saw she had 32 with five minutes left.
From there, her teammates prodded her for more, counting down until she became the first Toledo player to hit the 40-point mark twice.
Wiard hoped that isn’t the highlight of her final season, though.
After reaching the NCAA tournament, knocking off fifth-seeded Iowa State and falling in a second-round game at Tennessee, Wiard was hoping for another shot in her final year. It didn’t happen as Toledo missed out on an NCAA Women’s Tournament bid.
“That sets the standard,” Wiard said. “We know we want to go back there and we know what it takes to get there. Playing at Tennessee and being in the NCAA Tournament is something that I’ve dreamed about since I was a little kid.”
Wiard will be headed back to Cleveland on the weekend of the Final Four, but not as a player.
She’s been invited to a group tryout in front of professional scouts that weekend.
After that, she hopes to find a home to play a few years of professional basketball overseas and figure out where to go from there.
Before that, Wiard hopes to finish her Master of Business Administration in finance this spring at Toledo. In the long run, she hopes to use that degree to be a financial advisor closer to home in Michigan and maybe coach basketball as well.
Due to changes in NCAA rules, she already received some additional financial training. As Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rules have evolved, athletes like Wiard have been able to use their social media accounts to promote businesses and earn extra money for food, gas to get home and spending money.
Wiard says NIL didn’t have a large impact on her until this season and now it’s evolving at a rapid pace as MAC schools try to compete with larger Division I schools for talent by finding creative ways to help athletes earn money while going to school and competing.
Wiard and Lockett received a one-year lease for a new Toyota Rav4 from a local car dealership, a moment she posted for her nearly 3,500 Instagram followers.
“There’s a little bit more to do just outside of basketball,” Wiard said. “You have to post on social media, do a little bit more things here and there.
“I wish I could be a freshman now going into NIL with a full head of steam and have all four years to kind of work on the craft. It’s really cool and I think it will be a cool part of the game.”
It’s a huge change from the time before Wiard and Lockett started school and became freshman roommates in 2019, when Wiard couldn’t even find her future teammate on Instagram.
Now, all of the Toledo women’s basketball players have accounts.
Accounts they hope will get a lot more popular after a successful 26-5 season.
LocalSportsJournal.com
When the top-seeded Toledo women’s basketball team fell 13 points behind Western Michigan in the Mid-American Conference tournament opener, there wasn’t panic. When they trailed Buffalo by 15 in the second round, it was the same.
That’s because they had fifth-year seniors Sophia Wiard and Quinesha Lockett guiding them.
Ultimately, they fell in overtime to Buffalo, but the poise they showed is the reason the pair won back-to-back MAC Player of the Year awards.
That poise isn’t a surprise to anyone from Muskegon.
For years, Wiard showed it by becoming Oakridge’s leading all-time scorer (1,889), assists leader (450) and a softball star. She’s smart, athletic and experienced as the COVID year helped Wiard play more minutes than any Toledo basketball player has while averaging nearly 36 minutes a game over her last four seasons.
This year, Lockett missed six games due to injury. When she was out, Wiard had to become more aggressive shooting and take over more of the scoring load.
She did that and earned MAC Player of the Year honors a year after Lockett did the same in the pair’s first senior season.
“I think that’s why I won player of the year too because, when she went out, I had to step up a little bit,” Wiard said. “She’s a really, really good player.”
In Lockett’s first game back, Wiard scored 40 at Kent State. She said she didn’t notice she had scored so many until she looked at the scoreboard and saw she had 32 with five minutes left.
From there, her teammates prodded her for more, counting down until she became the first Toledo player to hit the 40-point mark twice.
Wiard hoped that isn’t the highlight of her final season, though.
After reaching the NCAA tournament, knocking off fifth-seeded Iowa State and falling in a second-round game at Tennessee, Wiard was hoping for another shot in her final year. It didn’t happen as Toledo missed out on an NCAA Women’s Tournament bid.
“That sets the standard,” Wiard said. “We know we want to go back there and we know what it takes to get there. Playing at Tennessee and being in the NCAA Tournament is something that I’ve dreamed about since I was a little kid.”
Wiard will be headed back to Cleveland on the weekend of the Final Four, but not as a player.
She’s been invited to a group tryout in front of professional scouts that weekend.
After that, she hopes to find a home to play a few years of professional basketball overseas and figure out where to go from there.
Before that, Wiard hopes to finish her Master of Business Administration in finance this spring at Toledo. In the long run, she hopes to use that degree to be a financial advisor closer to home in Michigan and maybe coach basketball as well.
Due to changes in NCAA rules, she already received some additional financial training. As Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rules have evolved, athletes like Wiard have been able to use their social media accounts to promote businesses and earn extra money for food, gas to get home and spending money.
Wiard says NIL didn’t have a large impact on her until this season and now it’s evolving at a rapid pace as MAC schools try to compete with larger Division I schools for talent by finding creative ways to help athletes earn money while going to school and competing.
Wiard and Lockett received a one-year lease for a new Toyota Rav4 from a local car dealership, a moment she posted for her nearly 3,500 Instagram followers.
“There’s a little bit more to do just outside of basketball,” Wiard said. “You have to post on social media, do a little bit more things here and there.
“I wish I could be a freshman now going into NIL with a full head of steam and have all four years to kind of work on the craft. It’s really cool and I think it will be a cool part of the game.”
It’s a huge change from the time before Wiard and Lockett started school and became freshman roommates in 2019, when Wiard couldn’t even find her future teammate on Instagram.
Now, all of the Toledo women’s basketball players have accounts.
Accounts they hope will get a lot more popular after a successful 26-5 season.
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