YPSILANTI, Mich. — The University of Toledo men’s basketball team handled Eastern Michigan’s 2-3 zone defense with poise for about 30 minutes of Tuesday’s contest at the Convocation Center.
The problem for the Rockets was an almost eight-minute stretch during the second half when Eastern Michigan went on a 22-0 run that helped the Eagles to a 76-69 win.
When Chris Darrington knocked down a 3-pointer with 11:07 left, the Rockets had a 53-41 lead and seemingly were in control of the game. But after that, just about everything that could go wrong for Toledo went wrong.
The Rockets turned the ball over seven times and went cold from the outside, while Eastern Michigan made three 3-pointers. By the time Boubacar Toure powered home a layup, the Eagles had a 63-53 lead with 4:38 remaining.
“It was our turnovers,” Toledo coach Tod Kowalczyk said. “The more you turn it over against them, the more they pressure you. We didn’t handle that zone very well. And then obviously we had some mistakes defensively during that stretch — some scouting mistakes, some just tough shots, and some casual mistakes. That’s on us. A 22-0 run, you just can’t have that. ... We did OK [with the zone] for 30 minutes. We just had a really bad 10 minutes, and that’s all it takes.”
VIDEO: Toledo coach Tod Kowalczyk
Marreon Jackson led Toledo (20-6, 8-5 MAC) with 14 points, Nate Navigato added 13 points, and Willie Jackson scored 10.
Elijah Minnie poured in 23 points for Eastern Michigan (12-14, 6-7), Paul Jackson added 19 points, and James Thompson IV tallied 14 points.
Marreon Jackson finally broke the Toledo drought with a 3 with 3:08 left. Toledo cut the lead to 70-66 with 1:03 left after Marreon Jackson converted a four-point play, but that was as close as they would get after Eastern Michigan made its free throws down the stretch.
The Rockets got good ball movement and player movement against the zone in the first half and the start of the second, but all that changed at the 11-minute mark.
“They really extended high, so you have to get the ball into the high post,” Kowalczyk said. “Sometimes we got the ball to the high post and we couldn’t make a play out of it. I thought we stood a little bit too much on offense.”
The mistakes for Toledo during the big run piled up, one seemingly leading to another.
“We just got away from what we were doing in the first half,” Navigato said. “The start of the second half, we started out great. We got the shots we wanted. But during that 22-0 run, we started taking bad shots and turnovers killed us. There is nothing else to it. Turnovers led to transition and easy buckets for them and once they got in a rhythm, Minnie hit some 3s and we let them get confident.”
Navigato made no excuses.
“It was completely on us,” Navigato said. “It was nothing that they did. It was just us being uncharacteristic of ourselves and turning the ball over like we shouldn’t.”
Eastern Michigan also went on an 11-2 run in the first half, capped by a jumper from Tariq Silver with 11:50 remaining to give the Eagles a 15-10 lead.
Eastern Michigan took its biggest lead of the half when Paul Jackson hit a 3 to give them an 18-13 edge. Toledo followed with a 3 from Spencer Littleson and a dunk by Willie Jackson to tie the game at 18.
A Thompson hook shot gave Eastern Michigan a 27-24 lead with 3:10 left in the opening half.
But Toledo closed the half on a 7-0 run with Sanford hitting a 3 and a runner in the lane, and Marreon Jackson added two free throws to take a 31-27 lead into halftime.
A Minnie layup gave the Eagles a 35-34 lead with 17:20 to go, but the Rockets used an 11-2 run of their own to take a 45-37 lead with 13 minutes left. That ballooned to a 12-point lead before the decisive run.
“We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again,” Kowalczyk said of his team picking itself up from the tough loss. “This is a resilient group of high-character guys. They’ll bounce back.”
First Published February 20, 2019, 2:11 a.m.
