YPSILANTI, Mich. — A deficit that once sat at 20 points was gone.
With fewer than two minutes to go, the University of Toledo men’s basketball team found itself in a tie game, a once-perilous situation neutralized and Cleveland well within the Rockets’ sights.
And then the same problem that put UT in that predicament in the first place ended their Mid-American Conference tournament for good.
No. 8 Eastern Michigan’s vaunted 2-3 zone forced ninth-seeded Toledo into three consecutive turnovers in a 61-second span late in the game. The Eagles converted Toledo’s giveaways into six critical points, the ultimate difference in UT’s 69-60 first-round defeat Monday at the EMU Convocation Center.
IN PICTURES: Toledo falls to Eastern Michigan
“Just like many games coming down the stretch, we’re right there having chances to win,” Toledo coach Tod Kowalczyk said. “Either we didn’t make plays or they did make plays. The one thing I’d like to say: sometimes you have to give the opponent some credit, too.
“That’s a heck of a zone that we faced tonight — a heck of a zone. It flustered us in the first half.”
Toledo (17-15) dropped six of its final seven games and lost all three games to Eastern Michigan (18-14) this season.
Nathan Boothe led UT with 16 points, followed by Stuckey Mosley with 12 and Jonthan Williams with 11. Nate Navigato also scored 10.
HACKENBERG: Rockets show backbone before falling
UT’s undoing was 19 turnovers against the Eagles’ bothersome defense. EMU turned Toledo’s turnovers in 24 points.
The Rockets started on shaky ground. UT turned over the ball seven times in the opening 7:30, including a stretch in which the Rockets coughed up the ball on five of six possessions.
EMU went on a 9-0 run during the stretch, seven of those points on Toledo giveaways. Down 14-5, UT called timeout at the 12:30 mark to regroup.
The Eagles added another basket to go ahead 16-5, finally spurring Toledo to show signs of life. Williams broke a scoring drought of nearly six minutes by making a 3-pointer, and Mosley connected on a jump shot to bring the Rockets to within six points.
From there, however, the night spiraled out of control for Toledo. Eastern Michigan completed a 17-4 run across the next eight minutes. Brandon Nazione’s 3-pointer with exactly two minutes remaining in the half gave the Eagles a 36-16 lead.
Toledo went into halftime trailing 36-20, a result of 20 minutes where hardly anything went its way. UT turned over the ball 11 times leading to 14 Eastern Michigan points and shot 7-for-24 (29.2 percent) from the field.
The Eagles scored four easy baskets in fast break scenarios and made 14 of their 28 total shots in the first half.
UT made up ground immediately to begin the second half. Mosley completed a 3-point play and converted a 3-pointer in front of the Toledo bench. Boothe made a jumper for an 8-0 run that trimmed the Eagles’ lead to 36-28 with almost an entire half to play.
Ty Toney’s jump shot with just fewer than nine minutes to play strengthened the Eagles’ lead to 11, though the Rockets responded with the run they coveted.
Boothe made a layup and a jump shot, Navigato connected on a 3, and Boothe made one of two free throws. With Toledo creating defensive stops, the Rockets had an 8-0 run and a one-possession game with 5:41 to play.
“[We were] just not making live-ball turnovers, staying together,” Boothe said. “We were getting that defensive edge that we needed to.”
Williams made a 3 from the right wing to tie the game at 55 just inside the three-minute mark, and after Toledo earned a stop, Jaelan Sanford made a reverse layup to give the Rockets their first lead since 1-0.
In a tie game, turnovers crept up again. Jordan Lauf threw away an inbound pass, and Williams lost possession twice. The Eagles created six points from the miscues, effectively ending UT's chances.
On Williams’s first turnover — with UT down only two — Kowalczyk said he bore responsibility. With UT’s time running out, Kowalczyk said he should have called timeout.
“I’m kicking myself in the rear end for not calling timeout when JonJon turned it over,” Kowalczyk said. “It was 12 seconds on the shot clock, and sometimes the best opportunity and chance to score against that zone is in a scramble. I should've called timeout because that possession was going nowhere.”
The Eagles will advance to play No. 1 seed Akron Thursday in Cleveland.
The Rockets, who had been 3-0 in the first game of the MAC tournament during their past three trips, fell in the first round for the first time since 2011.
“I think turnovers [were] our problem today,” Williams said. “Other than that, I think that we played as hard as we could. We played hard.”
Contact Nicholas Piotrowicz at: npiotrowicz@theblade.com, 724-6110, or on Twitter @NickPiotrowicz
First Published March 8, 2016, 5:28 a.m.
