Against one of the top scoring teams in the nation in Ohio, the University of Toledo women’s basketball turned in one of its best defensive performances of the season on the way to handing the Bobcats just their third loss in a 76-50 win on Wednesday night at Savage Arena.
The Bobcats came to Toledo averaging 82.5 points per game which led the Mid-American Conference and was seventh nationally. The Rockets sagged off Ohio’s leading scorer Cece Hooks and made her finish against taller players in the lane.
But most of all, Toledo made a point to stick close to Ohio shooters behind the 3-point line as the Bobcats came into the game making a conference-best 10.6 3-pointers per game. Whether it was the defense, an off night on the road, or a mix of both, Ohio made just 2-of-26 from beyond the arc and 18-of-75 from the field and was held to its season-low of 50 points.
“We were running them off the 3-point line,” Toledo sophomore guard Nakiah Black said. “It comes down to making no excuses. At the end of the day, someone is going to score eventually. You just have to grind it out, get down, and do what your coaches are asking you to do.”
VIDEO: UT head coach Tricia Cullop
Black had a hot-shooting night with six 3-pointers on the way to 20 points for Toledo (15-7, 7-4 MAC). Kaayla McIntyre added 17 points, 12 rebounds, and five blocks, while Mikaela Boyd scored 14 points, and Mariella Santucci had 13.
Hooks paced Ohio (20-3, 9-3 MAC) with 21 points and Amani Burke added 11.
McIntyre found herself guarding Hooks for much of the game and even thought Hooks got her points, she had to take 22 shots to do so.
“Hooks has hit maybe four 3’s [this season],” Toledo coach Tricia Cullop said. “When we looked at the stats, we thought it might be best to help on those drives because they were going 5-out. I know she’ll work on that if we see her again, but it seemed to work today. She still finished with quite a few points. You saw how explosive she was in transition. I thought having Kaayla in the middle was big. When you have a shot-blocker in there, it makes it difficult to finish and I thought Kaayla did a nice job of being a floor general in the middle.”
Black started the game on a roll with five 3’s and 17 points in the first half. She battled a bit of foul trouble in the second half, but her teammates picked up where she left off.
It was the second time this season that Black made six 3’s in a game as she also did so in a home win over Bowling Green. As a team, Toledo made 10-of-16 from 3 and 29-of-49 from the field.
“She came out of the gate feeling good,” Cullop said of Black. “Their game plan has always been to really pack it inside. They didn’t want Kaayla to have a good night tonight. They want you to have to beat them from the perimeter. So when we drove baseline and found Nakiah on the baseline or skipped it for a 3 or had her come off some screens for an open 3, she got great looks. But you still have to knock them down. She really was in a groove shooting the ball tonight and that is not the first time we’ve seen that. She is a great shooter.”
VIDEO: Toledo 76, Ohio 50
Behind Black’s big first half, Toledo took a 29-23 lead into halftime. The Rockets extended the lead to 50-40 after three quarters and put the game away with a 26-10 edge in the fourth quarter.
Toledo struggled a bit taking care of the ball with 16 turnovers and started off a little timid when Ohio extended its defense to full-court pressure in the second half. But ultimately they were able to handle the fast-paced Ohio defense to close out the game.
“I thought it was a really big turning point in the game,” Cullop said of her team’s ability to handle the full court defense. “We were a little shaky there for a second. But when our kids came to the timeout, they were completely confident. It’s not always that way when the game starts to swing a little bit. But the confidence I saw in their eyes made me feel confident that we could beat the press and take care of the basketball and run the clock with a lead.”
After wins against Central Michigan and Ohio, the respective leaders in their division of the MAC, Toledo has proven it can hang with any team in the conference on a given night.
“The RPI of our conference is at 7, which is the best it’s ever been,” Cullop said. “You have to be ready to play. There is not a bad team in our league.The important thing for us is to have some confidence knowing we can beat anybody and we’ve hung with everybody, but to understand that we have to stay focused.”
First Published February 14, 2019, 2:02 a.m.
