Desperately in search of a win and with its star point guard battling the flu, the University of Toledo men's basketball team was forced to dig deep in a 67-59 win over Western Michigan on Saturday night at Savage Arena.
On a five-game losing skid after playing five of its past six games on the road, the Rockets returned to Savage Arena trying to piece together a complete performance, and did so with star guard Marreon Jackson battling through an illness.
“I'm so proud of Marreon Jackson,” Toledo coach Tod Kowalczyk said. “We had a lot of guys step up, but at 3 a.m. in the morning he was throwing up with a bad flu.
“Marreon is getting the game ball tonight just for fighting through and doing what he did tonight.”
Jackson had 12 points and dished out nine assists as five Toledo players scored in double figures.
Luke Knapke led the way with 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Willie Jackson had 12 points and 16 rebounds. Spencer Littleson also scored 12 points, and Keshaun Saunders chipped in with 10 points.
Toledo (9-7, 1-2 MAC) played a solid defensive game, limiting Western Michigan (8-8, 1-2 MAC) to 36.5 percent shooting from the field, including a 4-of-22 mark from the 3-point line.
The four made 3's by Western Michigan was the lowest output for a Toledo opponent this season.
Brandon Johnson paced Western Michigan with 23 points, and Michael Flowers had 13 points.
The Rockets did a good job on Flowers, holding him under his season average of 17.8 points per gam,e largely because of the defense of Littleson.
“It was because we have the best defensive player in the league, in my opinion, in Spencer Littleson,” Kowalczyk said.
“I love his energy, and he's the most unselfish guy I think I've ever been around. He constantly gives positive energy to his teammates.”
The Rockets also dominated on the glass with a 46-29 rebounding advantage, led by Willie Jackson and Knapke.
“I think we guarded well the whole game,” Knapke said. “We got those rebounds and they were missing some shots that they made in the first half. But we did a really good job defensively.
“The rebounding was really important. To limit second chances is huge. A lot of times, offensive rebounds lead to big baskets and it's defeating as a defense if you guard for 30 seconds and they get an offensive rebound and score. That's just deflating.”
The teams battled back and forth in the first half with four ties and two lead changes and went into the locker room tied 32-32.
In the second half, the difference in the game was a 12-2 run by Toledo that included a 9-0 spurt to give the Rockets a 52-40 edge with 7:59 left.
The Broncos had a scoring drought of nearly seven minutes of gametime.
During the losing streak for Toledo, it was the Rockets who were forced to battle through similar scoring droughts. On Saturday night, Toledo was on the other side of things in front of the home crowd.
“I think we played with purpose the other games, but we just had one bad stretch in [each of] those games,” Kowalczyk said.
“We haven't always played the smartest in those games... We were able to get stops during that run. Off the top of my mind, I don't know exactly what we did offensively. We obviously did some scoring, but it was our defense there. It wasn't like we got really hot there. We just kept grinding it out and getting stops.”
Toledo extended the lead to as much as 15 points.
The Broncos were able to cut the lead to seven points after a 3-pointer from B. Artis White with 42 seconds left, but Marreon Jackson responded with 1-of-2 free throws and after a defensive stop, Willie Jackson broke free for a layup.
“It's huge for us,” Knapke said. “Going 0-2 in the MAC, that was how we started last year and we knew this was a big game for us to get things going again and we took care of business.”
First Published January 12, 2020, 3:26 a.m.
