While you watch all of the 2013 NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament during March Madness, follow along with a downloadable bracket, courtesy of Toledo Free Press Star and Vin Devers Autohaus of Sylvania.

The bracket is updated with all of the winners throughout the tournament, including the championship matchup from April 8 in Atlanta, pitting No. 4 Michigan University Wolverines against No. 1 Louisville Cardinals. Louisville won the championship game, 82-76. It’s the teams first national title since 1986.

No. 2 The Ohio State University Buckeyes made it to the final four for the first time since 2007. The team lost to the No. 9 Wichita State Shockers on March 30, 70-66.

The Buckeyes beat the Iowa State Cyclones to secure a spot in the Sweet 16. A 3-pointer by Buckeyes point guard Aaron Craft with 0.5 seconds left in the game lifted Ohio State past Iowa State, 78-75.

No. 3 Michigan State University Spartans also made it to the Sweet 16, handily beating the No. 6 Memphis Tigers 70-48. No. 4 Michigan University Wolverines also made it to the Sweet 16, beating the No. 5 Virginia Commonwealth University Rams 78-53.

The Wolverines will play the No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks on Friday, March 29 at 7:37 p.m. The Spartans are scheduled to play the No. 2 Duke Blue Devils on Friday, March 29 at 9:45 p.m.

Three Ohio teams made it into the tournament: The Buckeyes, No. 10 University of Cincinnati Bearcats and No. 12 University of Akron Zips. All but the Buckeyes were out in the first round.

For those looking to watch tournament action in person, there are early round games in Auburn Hills, Mich., and Dayton. Go here for tickets.

Download your bracket here.

Last year, Kentucky won the championship game, 67-59, over Kansas. It was the team’s eighth NCAA men’s basketball title and head coach John Calipari’s first. Ohio State lost to Kansas in the Final Four, 62-64. Ohio State had beat out No. 1 Syracuse in Boston during the Elite 8 matchup. Ohio had four teams make it to the “Sweet Sixteen”: The Ohio State University Buckeyes, University of Cincinnati Bearcats, Xavier University Musketeers and Ohio University Bobcats.

Tags: bracket, College basketball, download, March, March Madness, Men's Basketball, Michigan State University Spartans, NCAA, NCAA Championships, NCAA Tournament, PDF, printable, The Ohio State Buckeyes, tournament, University of Michigan Wolverines

This entry was posted on Monday, March 18th, 2013 at 1:10 pm and is filed under College sports, Sports, Star.
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When Akron came into Savage Arena to take on the Rockets on Wednesday night, it played like a team that was undefeated in the Mid-American Conference.

Featuring four of the MAC’s top 30 scorers—including seven-footer Zeke Marshall—Akron never trailed and led by as many as 17 in a contest which left Toledo head coach Tod Kowalczyk wondering where his team’s grit was.

“I just didn’t think we had any type of grit,” Kowalczyk said of his team, now 6-10 overall and 2-3 in MAC play. “We talk a lot about not just grit, but I want visible grit. I want to see it, but I want people in the stands to see it, and we just didn’t have guys show that visible grit.”

UT was led in the contest by junior guard Rian Pearson, who finished with team-highs of 16 points and eight rebounds for the Rockets in 24 minutes. Sophomore point guard Julius “Juice” Brown also finished in double figures for Toledo with 11 points.

Despite his team-high numbers in scoring and rebounding, however, Pearson didn’t emerge from UT’s third-straight MAC loss without some criticism from his coach.

When asked in the postgame press conference why Pearson didn’t start the second half, Kowalczyk said: “It’s about being a good teammate.”

In the first half, the Rockets struggled to find some continuity on offense, going 10-33 from the field. Only Pearson, Brown and junior center Richard Wonnell registered field goals for Toledo, who missed eight layups and had zero free-throw attempts in the first 20 minutes.

The Zips (14-4, 5-0 MAC), meanwhile, extended their first half lead to as many as 16 after a three-pointer from Chauncey Gilliam made it 30-14 at the 7:31 mark. Akron outscored Toledo 18-12 in the paint and 16-2 on second chance attempts in the contest’s first 20 minutes, with several of those buckets coming from Marshall.

Marshall had nine points, four rebounds and seven blocks in the first half. He finished with a game-high 18 points to go with eight rebounds and nine blocks, the last of which tied his own school record.

“He’s a seven-footer, so he can change a lot of shots,” said Pearson, who entered the game as the MAC’s leading scorer. “So when you go to the rim, he’s going to change your shot, and I think that’s what had happened.”

Kowalczyk had a different perspective on Toledo’s first half woes.

“We missed some opportunities to finish around the goal, and I don’t buy that [Marshall] changed the shot,” Kowalczyk said. “I don’t buy that. The ones that he blocked? All right. Fine. Give him credit for it, but changing a shot, I think it was just our mentality that we just didn’t go up strong enough.”

With Pearson on the bench to start the second half, Toledo received an initial boost from junior forward Reese Holliday, who had five Rockets’ points during a run where UT outscored Akron 11-4 to cut the Zips’ lead to 40-32 with 15:48 to go.

Following its timeout, however, Akron responded with a run of its own, one in which it outscored Toledo 15-7 on the strength of five-straight three-pointers to make it 55-39 by the 11:27 mark.

“They’re deeper than Ohio is, and they’re just bigger,” Kowalczyk said of the Zips. “They’re what we want to become. They’ve been to six-straight MAC championships, and that’s what we’re striving for is to be able to compete every year for a championship. Obviously we’re not there, but we’re going to be.”

The closest the Rockets got within the Zips after those five consecutive treys was 11 as Akron cruised to the 71-56 victory. The schedule doesn’t get any easier for Toledo, either. On Jan. 26, UT hosts rival Bowling Green (7-11, 2-3 MAC) at 7 p.m. in Savage Arena.

“I think the one thing about this team and the character of this team is we have been resilient over time,” Kowalczyk said. “All last year, we had some ups and downs and finished the season in a really strong way, so we’ll be the same way.

“We just need to obviously stay healthy and stay together, and tonight we just weren’t together. We didn’t have that team grit or that team chemistry. I just wasn’t very happy with that in the first half.”

Tags: College basketball, MAC, Rockets basketball, Toledo, Toledo Rockets, University of Toledo

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2013 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Rocket Basketball, Sports.
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In an offensively challenged contest, the Rockets failed to convert two late game-tying three-pointers as Eastern Michigan escaped with a 41-38 victory on Jan. 21 at the Convocation Center in Ypsilanti.

With the loss, Toledo (9-10, 1-4 MAC) has lost nine of its past 12 games after a 6-1 start and now owns a 1-6 record in games decided by three points or less. The Rockets’

UT head coach Tod Kowalczyk

38 points are a season low and their fewest total since a 50-35 loss to Wright State in Dec. 2008.

Toledo guards Rian Pearson and Curtis Dennis were the lone players in double-figures with 12 and 10 points, respectively.

Darrell Lampley led the MAC West co-leading Eagles (9-10, 4-1) with nine points.

The Rockets shot a season-worst 30 percent from the field (15 of 50) and set season lows in free throws (5) and free-throw attempts (7).

Toledo shot just 21.7 percent (5 of 23) in the first half as the Eagles took a 15-14 halftime lead.

With the game tied late in the second half at 36, Eastern Michigan burst out to a 41-36 advantage with just over two minutes remaining. After the Rockets cut the lead to three, the team had two opportunities to tie it but could not convert.

Junior guard Dominique Buckley missed a three-pointer with 55 seconds remaining but classmate Matt Smith kept the lead at three with a block on the other end. Freshman point guard Juice Brown missed another chance to tie the game with just seven seconds remaining and Buckley committed a backcourt violation trying to corral the rebound, sealing the EMU victory.

The Rockets will travel to last place MAC East squad Miami (5-11, 1-3) on Jan. 25 as they attempt to win their first conference road game since a March 2008 victory at Central Michigan.

Tags: College basketball, Eastern Michigan University, Rockets, University of Toledo

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2012 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Rocket Basketball, Sports.
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After grinding through a seven-game stretch where five of those contests were decided by five points or less, Toledo showed its’ toughness in a 63-48 victory over Ball State at Savage Arena on Thursday night. Despite playing without junior forward and team co-captain Lecretia Smith, the Rockets used a balanced defensive attack to limit the Cardinals to just 25.9 percent shooting for the game.

“I’m very proud of our team tonight for coming out of the gate strong,” UT head coach Tricia Cullop said. “I thought we really paid attention to our gameplan. [Associate head coach] Todd Mitmesser did a great job on the scouting report.”

Toledo managed to outscore Ball State 34-16 in the paint in the absence of Smith, who injured her shoulder in practice and is day-to-day. A lot of those points came from junior center and Start graduate Yolanda Richardson, who tied her career-high with 20 points on 9 of 10 shooting from the floor.

“I was really proud that we were able to establish our low post game, and Yolanda’s leading the league in field goal percentage,” Cullop said. “She’s 9 for 10 from the field tonight. I’m very, very proud of what she’s doing on the low block. She’s garnering a lot of attention down there and making very, very good decisions, but [I’m] also proud of the fact that our guards did a great job of distributing the ball at the right time.”

“In practice we’ve been working on just executing more on offense, as in the guards’ standpoint in passing, us as in catching,” Richardson said. “We’ve been working on it a lot in practice, so I think it really came over into the game, too—just really get it down low and get a inside-out presence.”

Senior guard Courtney Ingersoll registered her first career double-double with 11 points and a team-high 10 rebounds in the contest, while sophomore guard Andola Dortch finished with eight points and a team-high eight assists to go with five rebounds. UT also received a solid outing from freshman forward Inma Zanoguera, who went 3 of 4 from the field and had nine points.

“I think it feels good just because it shows, like, everyone that we can go out and play hard from start to finish,” Ingersoll said. “And I thought this was probably one of our best start to finish [Mid-American Conference] games we’ve had so far this season.”

The Rockets (10-7, 3-2 MAC) got on the board first to start the game as senior guard Haylie Linn got into the paint and was fouled on her layup, hitting the free throw to give Toledo a 3-0 advantage at the 19:01 mark. After going up 8-3 following a bucket from Zanoguera with 16:23 to go in the half, however, UT went nearly four minutes without another point until Zanoguera’s free throws extended her team’s lead to 10-3 with 12:28 left in the opening period.

The Cardinals (7-11, 2-3 MAC), meanwhile, didn’t get their second field goal of the game until the 10:45 mark when Brittany Carter sunk the team’s second three-pointer of the contest to make it 14-6 in favor of the Rockets. Ball State went on a 9-4 run following that trey to make it an 18-15 ballgame with 6:26 left in the half after another three-pointer from Mercedes Miller.

Toledo answered with an 8-0 run to go up 26-15, getting two treys from Ingersoll in that stretch as the Rockets went into halftime up 31-20. UT picked up where it left off in the second half, using a 14-2 run by the 13:20 mark to go up 45-22. The closest Ball State got the rest of the way was 11 as the Rockets came away with the 15-point victory.

Cullop said she talked to the team prior to the game about how her squads overcame injuries to key players like Tanika Mays, Allie Clifton and Lisa Johnson in the past and still had success.

“We talked about that a lot before we came out tonight because everybody had to divide up what Lecretia does in order for us to win, and I thought they did,” Cullop said. “But I thought Inma stepped up big. She really played focused and with a lot of passion.”

Toledo will be in action again on Jan. 22 when it faces Ohio (9-10, 2-3 MAC) in Athens at 2 p.m.

Tags: College basketball, Tricia Cullop, Univeristy of Toledo

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 10:38 am and is filed under Rocket Basketball, Sports.
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The Rockets, the last remaining Mid-American team without a conference victory, picked up a resounding 71-41 win on Jan. 18 over rival Northern Illinois in Savage Arena.

Toledo (9-9, 1-3 MAC) entered the night losing eight of its past 10 games after starting the season 6-1. The Rockets and their top-ranked MAC offense (74.1 ppg) shot over 53 percent from the field (25 of 47), including over 47 percent from behind the arc (9 of 19), as they trounced the last place Huskies (2-13, 1-3).

“We are happy,” junior guard Curtis Dennis said. “We still have a lot of work to do but it feels good to finally get a win. It was much needed.”

Dennis led all scores with 18 points of the bench (6 of 10) and grabbed six rebounds. After scoring in double-figures in four of his first six games after missing the first nine games of the season due to NCAA transfer rules, Dennis scored just 10 points in his last two games in losses. The junior guard is averaging 12.3 points per game off the bench for the Rockets this year.

Junior guard Curtis Dennis. Photo by Nick Kneer

“He took some good shots,” UT head coach Tod Kowalczyk said. “He has had a hard time lately making shots because of mechanical issues. We worked on it, he bought in and he has had success with it. We need Curtis to come off the bench and make some shots for us. He’s a very good shooter and hasn’t been doing that for us. That’s a problem.”

“I have been struggling lately but today I wanted to come out and get back into a rhythm,” Dennis said. “My teammates found me and set great screens and I was able to hit some shots tonight.”

Sophomore forward Reese Holliday racked up 11 points (4 of 6) with five rebounds while junior guard Dominique Buckley scored 10 (4 of 9). Leading scorer Rian Pearson (15.9 ppg) had just eight points but pulled down nine rebounds.

Northern Illinois was held without a scorer in double-figures, shooting just 30.2 percent (13 of 43) on the night.

Despite the success of the UT offense, the Rockets struggled to take care of the ball racking up 17 turnovers, including eight by Pearson. The Huskies, however, were unable to take advantage turning those 17 turnovers into just nine points.

“Offensively I’m not really happy with how we played,” Kowalczyk said. “I thought we made shots but I don’t think we moved the ball like we are capable of and 17 turnovers against Northern Illinois are to me not acceptable. I guess it’s a good thing when you win by 30 and the coach isn’t really happy.”

The Huskies kept the game close through the first 12 minutes trailing 18-15 before UT ripped off a 19-3 run to end the half at 37-18. Northern Illinois wasn’t able to make much of a dent after halftime as the Rockets lead ballooned to the 30-point margin they won by.

Toledo will begin a two-game road trip on Jan. 21 when the team travels north to Ypsilanti to take on Eastern Michigan (8-10, 3-1) at 2 p.m. After losing nine of its past 11 games, EMU defeated Ball State and Western Michigan in the last five days—both of which handed UT losses last week.

Tags: College basketball, Curtis Dennis, Tod Kowalczyk, University of Toledo

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 19th, 2012 at 7:11 am and is filed under Rocket Basketball, Sports.
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Despite shooting just 29.6 percent from the floor, the Rockets clamped down on the defensive end and were able to pull out a 42-31 victory over the visiting Huskies for their third-straight Mid-American Conference victory on Jan. 12 in Savage Arena.

“This was a defensive juggernaut,” Toledo head coach Tricia Cullop said. “If people came here wanting an offensive, high-powered, potent game, they’re going to leave disappointed, but if they came here wanting a Rocket victory, they got what they wanted. We keep saying it was ugly, it was this, it was that, but it was a win, and I think maybe this is our identity.

“Maybe we’re the win ugly team, and I’ll take that because I love the intensity defensively of our team.”

Cullop learned that defensive intensity from first-year Northern Illinois head coach Kathi Bennett, who was Cullop’s predecessor in her last job at Evansville.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Kathi Bennett,” Cullop said. “It’s the first time I’ve ever had a chance to coach against her, but I inherited a team there that was tremendous defensively. The one thing I told Kathi after coaching that team was that they made me appreciate that so much, and I really changed my thinking when I was at Evansville about being more defensive-minded because of her.”

Toledo (11-5, 3-0 MAC) limited Northern Illinois (6-10, 0-3 MAC) to just nine points and 13 percent shooting in the first half, and the Huskies finished 12-of-51 from the field for the game. The Rockets were led by junior guard Naama Shafir’s 12 points, while sophomore forward Lecretia Smith just missed a double-double with eight points and nine rebounds. While Toledo also shot poorly in the game, it scored 15 points off the Huskies’ 20 turnovers and outscored their bench 9-2.

“We did play good defense, and I think that was what made the difference,” Shafir said. “We need to work on some stuff on offense because we’re going to face teams that we’re going to have to hit shots.”

Marke Freeman, who came in as Northern Illinois’ leading scorer at 15.7 points per game, was limited to just nine for the contest, all of which were in the first half.

“I think we came out with a defensive intensity, and I think that’s what kept them with nine in the first half,” Smith said. “We came out and we knew we had to stop them on D because Marke Freeman obviously is a great player. I think it was a defensive effort.”

In the first half, the Rockets jumped out to a 10-3 lead by the 12:27 mark after a jumper from senior forward Melissa Goodall. Freeman hit her second three-pointer of the game with 12:14 left to play in the half to make it 10-6, but a jumper from Smith and a layup from Shafir extended Toledo’s lead to 14-6 by the 10:48 mark. The Rockets went on an 11-3 run the rest of the way and took a 25-9 lead over the Huskies into halftime.

Northern Illinois started the second half with a 10-4 run and made it 29-19 with 14:07 left to play in the game as Toledo struggled to knock down shots. By the 11:43 mark, the Rockets had only scored four points after the break and were shooting just 28 percent from the field with nine turnovers. However, the Huskies went on a scoring draught until Danielle Pulliam’s jumper with 8:27 remaining made it 32-21. Two consecutive baskets from Smith with under five to play extended Toledo’s lead to 15 by the 3:39 mark, and the Rockets held on down the stretch for the 42-31 victory.

Smith took a shot to the nose in the first half, but came back in the second half and provided a spark for Toledo. Her nose was broken earlier this year.

“The thing we always tell Lecretia is Dennis Rodman wasn’t that big, but he led the NBA in rebounding,” Cullop said. “It’s all about heart, desire, positioning [and] being intelligent, and boy is she. She provides so much intensity and energy defensively, that enthusiasm that she just kind of energizes our defense.”

The Rockets will be in action again on Jan. 15 when they travel to Ypsilanti to take on Eastern Michigan (11-6, 2-1 MAC) at noon. The game will be televised on SportsTime Ohio.

Tags: Bauman's Breakdown, College basketball, Mike Bauman, Rockets basketball, University of Toledo

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 13th, 2011 at 8:47 am and is filed under Bauman's Breakdown, Rocket Basketball, Sports.
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In a gritty, physical game filled with several bumps, tumbles, stumbles and spills, the young Rockets overcame their mistakes at the end of regulation and hung on to defeat Valparaiso in overtime by a score of 75-72 in front of 4,078 at Savage Arena Dec. 11.

“It wasn’t always pretty, but I’m giving them a lot of credit for just gutting out a great win,” first-year Toledo head coach Tod Kowalczyk said. “I’m just very, very proud that they hung together. In the first half, I thought we competed and we played hard, but we didn’t play smart basketball, and the guys responded at halftime.”

Toledo (1-9, 0-0 Mid-American Conference) held a 63-61 lead with 42 seconds left, but senior forward Anthony Wright’s attempted pass to sophomore guard Malcolm Griffin on the right side was picked off in the air by Brandon Wood, who took the rock coast-to-coast and tied the game up with 26 seconds left. Following the Rockets’ timeout, the ball was put in Griffin’s hand for the last shot, which fell short of the rim and sent the contest to overtime. Despite the mistakes at the end of regulation, Toledo didn’t put its’ collective heads down and outscored Valparaiso 12-9 in extra time to pick up their first victory of the season.

“It feels great, man,” freshman guard Reese Holliday said. Holliday finished with a double-double, posting a team-high 16 points to go with his 10 rebounds. “First official college win; ain’t nothing like it.”

Sophomore forward Hayden Humes also had a double-double for the Rockets with 10 points and 14 rebounds, while Griffin finished with 14 points. Wright and freshman forward Delino Dear finished with 13 and 11 points, respectively. Toledo had 12 turnovers in the first half, but buckled down defensively and took care of the ball in the second half, only committing another five the rest of the way.

“Usually in this season, we’ve gotten stops, but we haven’t scored,” Wright said. “This game, we got consecutive stops and consecutive scores, and that got the team involved. I saw the bench going crazy. Fans got into it, and [that] was the first time this year that we really fed off the crowd.”

Valparaiso (6-4, 2-0 Horizon League) held an early 12-6 advantage less than four minutes into the game on the strength of Ryan Broekhoff’s scoring ability as the Australian guard was three-for-three from the field to start the contest, including two-for-two from beyond the arc. With the score 12-8 following a lay-in from Holliday, freshman guard J.T. Thomas was stripped on the Rockets’ next offensive possession, and a host of Toledo and Crusaders’ players tried to track the loose ball down the court, with Thomas ultimately coming up with it and calling a timeout at the 14:59 mark.

Wright hit a trey from the right wing and Dear got the and-one on his lay-in to tie the game at 16 and help ignite an 8-4 Rockets’ run by the 12:55 mark. However, a three-pointer from Jay Harris ended his team’s scoring drought and put the Crusaders back up 19-16 with 10:31 left on the clock as Valparaiso outscored Toledo 9-3 to go up 25-19 with 7:48 remaining in the half. Griffin’s lay-in at the 6:58 mark made it 27-21, but the Crusaders closed out the first half with a 9-7 scoring edge to lead 36-28 at the break.

In the second half, Cory Johnson went on a tear to start the period, outscoring Toledo 8-6 by himself to help extend Valparaiso’s lead to 44-34 with 16:58 left on the clock. Griffin responded by scoring seven of the Rockets’ next nine points to make it 49-45 by the 12:36 mark. After senior forward Justin Anyijong’s bucket cut the Crusaders’ lead to just 49-47, Toledo outscored Valparaiso 7-3 and took its’ first lead since the 19:36 mark of the first half when Holliday’s lay-in made it 54-52 with 6:35 left to play.

When the Crusaders tied it back up at 54, Wright nailed a three on the Rockets’ ensuing possession to put Toledo up 57-54 at the 4:31 mark. Johnson continued to be a thorn in the Rockets’ side as his jump hook it made it 59-58 with 2:08 to go in regulation. However, Toledo was able to overcome his game-high 25 points to hang on for the win.

“It was nice for guys in this game because you could see them step up and grow up and be able to just taste that win,” Wright said. “That was the biggest thing. The second biggest thing is this can’t be where guys stop going. We have to carry this on to next Saturday.”

The Rockets will be in Savage Arena again on Dec. 18 to take on Florida Gulf Coast (2-5, 0-2 Atlantic Sun Conference) at 7 p.m.

Tags: Bauman's Breakdown, College basketball, Mike Bauman, Rockets, University of Toledo

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 12th, 2010 at 11:41 am and is filed under Bauman's Breakdown, Rocket Basketball, Sports.
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Playing against a University of Michigan-Dearborn squad that went 1-29 in 2009-10, Toledo had little trouble scoring the basketball Nov. 2 as it rolled 92-73 in its’ final exhibition game before the regular season tips off next week. While the Rockets did a decent job of putting points on the board, they had trouble taking care of the basketball and playing good transition defense. Toledo committed 15 turnovers that resulted in 17 Wolves’ points, and also allowed 10 fast break points from UM-Dearborn.

“We are very limited at a lot of positions, and some of these guys need to know what their limitations are,” Toledo head coach Tod Kowalczyk said. “We’ve got to play the game a little bit slower. We’ve got to take great shots and can’t turn it over, and our bread and butter better be our defense, and right now it’s not and our transition defense is horrendous.”

The limitations Kowalczyk referred to were the injuries the team is facing right now at multiple positions, as well as the fact that he will only have seven scholarship players on the roster this season. Sophomore guard Rian Pearson (UW-Green Bay), sophomore forward Matt Smith (UW-Green Bay) and junior guard Dominique Buckley (Iowa State) will not be eligible to play for the Rockets until the 2011-12 season after transferring into the Toledo program. Freshman point guard J.T. Thomas is out until at least the home opener against Illinois-Chicago Nov. 19 as he recovers from foot surgery, while senior forward and Michigan transfer Anthony Wright is likely out until at least the Temple game Nov. 14 with an arch injury in his foot.

Kowalczyk said that his team is hard to judge right now because of the injuries and the players who will not be eligible until next season, but that he needs to do what’s best for this year’s team, which is to manage the current situation for the long haul.

“It’s a long season,” Kowalczyk said. “You play a lot of games, and I need to manage this situation for the long haul and not worry about one game or a game. I think for Anthony, the goal is to make sure he’s 100 percent healthy for UIC, and J.T. may be able to play at that point in time, too.”

A bright spot in Tuesday’s exhibition game was that the Rockets had six players finish in double figures, led by freshman guard Zack Leahy’s 16 points. Sophomore guard Malcolm Griffin was Toledo’s second-leading scorer with 14 points, while senior forward Justin Anyijong and freshman guard Reese Holliday had 13 points apiece. Redshirt freshman forward Hayden Humes and freshman center Delino Dear finished with 11 and 10 points, respectively.

“He’s the most important guy to this team right now,” Kowalczyk said of Leahy. “Now, obviously when J.T. and Anthony come back and when some other guys get better, that may not be the case. But right now, he’s an important piece to our puzzle.”

The Rockets opened up the game with an early 7-2 lead within the first three minutes, led by Leahy’s five points. With 15:23 remaining in the first half, Griffin found Holliday down the right side of the court with an outlet pass, and Holliday took it to the hoop and got the layup and the foul to make it 13-8 Toledo. By the 12:18 mark, the Rockets held a 19-12 advantage as they connected on eight of their 12 field goal attempts.

With 7:47 left to go in the half, Toledo was up by a score of 24-18 and probably could have led by more if it hadn’t committed seven turnovers. However, Rockets’ freshman walk-on forward Jess Chadwell sparked the team with seven straight points to extend Toledo’s lead to 15 with the score 38-23 by the 3:34 mark. The Rockets closed out the half with a 48-29 lead on the strength of 63 percent shooting from the field. Both teams had 10 turnovers in the first half, with the Wolves scoring 12 points off Toledo’s miscues. However, the Rockets outscored UM-Dearborn 28-4 in the paint, and it proved to be the difference in the opening period.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do defensively,” Griffin said. “I think our offense is a little better, but if we’re going to go against Illinois, we’ve got to bring it.”

In the second half, Toledo maintained its’ double-digit lead in the opening eight-plus minutes, leading 67-50 with 11:53 left to play in the game as it continued to shoot over 60 percent from the field. The Wolves responded with a 7-2 run to make it 69-57 at the 9:57 mark. However, the Rockets outscored UM-Dearborn 23-16 the rest of the way for the 92-73 final.

“Winning two exhibition games, these guys needed that,” Kowalczyk said. “They need to feel what it’s like to win.”

Tip-off for Toledo’s season opener Nov. 10 at No. 13 Illinois for the first contest of the 2K Sports Classic benefitting Coaches vs. Cancer is set for 7 p.m. CT.

Tags: Bauman's Breakdown, College basketball, Mike Bauman, Rockets, UT

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 4th, 2010 at 8:43 am and is filed under Bauman's Breakdown, Sports.
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Justin Anyijong scored 13 points and grabbed seven rebounds as Toledo snapped a school-record 19-game losing streak by beating Ball State 45-42 on Feb. 27.

The Rockets (4-26, 1-14 Mid-American Conference) led 30-15 at halftime, outshooting the Cardinals 48 percent (12-for-25) to 15.8 percent (3-for-19) in the first 20 minutes.

Toledo’s shooting turned cold in the second half, dropping to 26.3 percent (5-for-19), but Ball State didn’t improve enough, making 34.6 percent (9-for-26). The final margin was as close as the Cardinals (15-13, 8-7) got since the game’s first 8 minutes.

Ball State’s loss dropped it into a three-way tie with Eastern Michigan and Central Michigan atop the MAC North Division with one game left in the regular season.

Randy Davis had 14 points and eight rebounds and Jarrod Jones had 13 points and 11 rebounds for Ball State.

Tags: College basketball

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 7:54 am and is filed under Rocket Basketball, Sports.
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