Right from the start, University of Toledo coach Tod Kowalczyk sensed that his team's effort was not there against Buffalo on Friday night at Savage Arena.
In the beginning of the game, which was filled with careless Toledo turnovers and a sluggishness that Kowalczyk hadn't seen from his team since a bad loss at Kansas City, an early Buffalo surge put Toledo on its heels as the Bulls raced to an 83-67 win.
It was the sixth loss in the last seven games for Toledo (12-14, 4-9 MAC) and the 12th in the last 16 games as the Rockets have gone on a slide that has included two separate five-game losing skids.
“Marreon Jackson had uncharacteristic, bad turnovers that led to layups,” Kowalczyk said. “Willie Jackson in transition throwing a one-handed pass. I saw it early and took them both of them out fairly early and tried to settle them down and talk to them but by then we were already in a 12-point hole and it snowballed from there. Clearly it was the start of the game, there is no doubt about that.”
Buffalo took control early with a 17-0 run that gave them a 26-10 lead with 9:12 left in the half. Toledo cut the lead to nine points at 34-25 after a layup from Spencer Littleson with 4:40 left in the half.
But the Bulls responded with an 18-3 run to close out the first half and took a 52-28 lead into halftime.
“The way it started it off, as a senior, I'm taking full leadership and full ownership of this game,” Willie Jackson said. “This one falls on me. It was the way I started the game off. I put that on me and guy's feed off my energy and toughness. The first half it wasn't there and at that point it was too late.”
The Rockets turned the ball over 11 times in the first half, leading to 20 points off turnovers for Buffalo.
“Me being the point guard, the point guard is the leader of the team and everything goes through him,” Marreon Jackson said. “The coaches depend on me a lot as a coach on the floor making sure everything is going good. I started terrible with the live ball turnovers. You can't turn the ball over like that against a Buffalo team that is a top team in pace and transition points. It started with me and it was a domino effect for the team.”
Toledo cut the 24-point halftime deficit to 12 points at 58-46 with 13:02 left after two free throws from Luke Knapke. But Buffalo scored the next six points to take back control of the game and that was as close as Toledo would get.
“It's amazing what can happen when you don't turn the ball over and don't give them live ball turnovers,” Kowalczyk said. “You can sit down and defend. There's no defense for Marreon's turnovers that are layups and Willie's turnovers that are layups and Knapke misses a layup and they get a transition basket going the other way. That's hard to defend.”
Toledo ended up with five scorers in double figures as Marreon Jackson, Knapke, and Littleson scored 13 points each, while Keshaun Saunders added 12 points and Willie Jackson had 11 points and 10 rebounds.
Jayvon Graves paced Buffalo (16-9, 7-5 MAC) with 27 points. Jeenathan Williams and Josh Mballa added 12 points each and Antwain Johnson 10 points.
Toledo finished the game with 16 turnovers that led to 24 points for Buffalo. The Bulls had 27 fast break points in the game and got 22 points from their bench.
“This is a hard league to win in and you don't want to be the team that is playing catch-up the whole game and that's the way it was for us tonight,” Marreon Jackson said.
Aside from the turnover issues, the Rockets struggled to find their shooting touch with a 38.2 percent mark (21-of-55) from the field and a 12.5 percent mark (3-of-24) from the 3-point line.
“We knew what we were supposed to do and what this game meant to us, the fans, and the coaches,” Willie Jackson said. “The lack of focus from a senior, that's what it came down to, my lack of focus.”
Toledo will look to regroup as they now have a week off before traveling to Western Michigan for a Saturday game. Kowalczyk said he is urging his players to take the next three days off before coming back refreshed for Tuesday's practice.
“I think we still have a lot of fight left in us, but do we need this break? Yeah,” Kowalczyk said. “Buffalo didn't play Tuesday. They had a whole week off and obviously they rested up and got better. We need that. This couldn't come at a better time.”
First Published February 15, 2020, 3:14 a.m.
