Despite trailing by just one at halftime, the Rockets losing streak hit 18 games as they fell to Horizon League foe Cleveland St. 87-63 on Saturday. The Vikings shot an incredible 74 percent (20 for 27) from the field, outscoring Toledo 53-30 in the second half.
“I don’t even know if I have words,” Toledo Head Coach Gene Cross said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team shoot 74 percent in a half. I think it’s utterly ridiculous that we didn’t pay attention to detail, didn’t play hard enough. It’s unbelievable.”
With the loss, Toledo (3-25, 0-13 Mid-American Conference) has doubled the previous record of nine consecutive losses. Cross still has no victories on the road in his tenure with the Rockets (0-29) and is now 10-49 overall. UT showed signs of improvement as they surpassed the 60-point mark for the first time since December 10th against IPFW and shot a season-high 58.6 percent (25 of 44) from the field. The improved offense was countered by allowing an opponent to shoot 64 percent (32 of 50) from the field and turning the ball over 18 times, which resulted in 26 points for the Vikings.
“I told our guys that we can’t bank on shooting a great percentage in the second half,” Cross said. “Well by the way, we did shoot 52 percent in the second half, but we didn’t defend at all and turned the ball over 18 times. That’s where the game is right there. We gave away possessions and then on possessions we gave to them, they scored. You can’t win ball games like that.”
Freshman guard Jake Barnett led the Rockets with 15 points while junior forward Justin Anyijong had 13 points and led the team with seven rebounds. Freshman forward Jordan Dressler also scored in double figures for Toledo with 12 points and grabbed five boards. Sophomore guard Larry Bastfield tied a career high with seven assists and scored seven points.
The Rockets opened the game with an 8-2 spurt following back-to-back threes from Barnett and Anyijong. The Vikings battled back late in the half using an 8-0 run to take the lead 26-21. Toledo outscored Cleveland St. 12-8 in the final 7:54 to bring the game within one at 34-33 at the break.
“It was an exciting first half,” Cross said. “We scored the ball unlike any other time this year. We also handled their press pretty well which was a worry of mine coming into the game. I knew that they were going to turn it up in the second half.”
Toledo struggled with the press of Cleveland St. as the Vikings rattled off 16 straight points following six turnovers by the Rockets in the first four minutes of the second half. Anyijong’s put back underneath the basket with 13:36 remaining in the game temporarily stopped the bleeding, but Cleveland St. responded with six unanswered points to put the game out of reach at 56-38. UT trailed by double-digits for the remainder of the contest.
“You have to have a mentality, a mindset, to get stops and we didn’t have that throughout the entire game at all,” Cross said. “I told our guys that if you expect to win games, you can’t rest on putting the ball in the hole. You have to come out and you have some sort of idea about coming out and playing hard and doing what you’re supposed to do defensively and that’s the bottom line. We didn’t do it today.”
Cleveland St.’s Norris Cole led all scorers with 18 points while dishing out six assists. D’Aundray Brown and Tim Kamczyc added 14 and 12 points, respectively. The Vikings outscored Toledo 8-0 in fast break points and 26-11 in points off the bench.
When asked if the players are angry after the loss on Saturday night Cross said, “Yeah, I make sure they’re angry and they should be. We’re going to come out and we’re going to practice and we’re going to get after each other.”
The Rockets host Western Michigan (14-13, 6-7 MAC) on Wednesday Feb. 24th at 7 p.m.
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