Toledo OH – Toledo improved to 11-1 in
conference play on Wednesday with a 76-39 beat-down of the visiting Western
Michigan Broncos. The impressive victory marks the seventh consecutive win for
the Rockets and the 45th win in the 63-game all-time series.
Coming into the game, Tricia
Cullop and her Rockets were concerned about the contest because this was the
same Western Michigan team that darn near beat Toledo back on January 8, leading
by as many as 12 points before the Midnight Blue and Gold caught up at the end
of regulation play and finally grabbed a 63-60 win in overtime. And wasn't this
the same Western Michigan team that spanked East Division leader Bowling Green
66-55 in a home game on January 29? Yes, this was the very same team but believe
me, the only time Wednesday’s game was close at Savage Arena was just before the
official threw up the ball for the opening tip: The Rockets were that
dominating.
Naama Shafir got the
party started by scoring the first six points of the contest and when Melissa
Goodall found net on a jumper to make the score 8-0, Bronco Head Coach Tasha
McDowell was forced to call a timeout at the 15:35 mark to talk a few things
over, perhaps like why her team had committed six turnovers and had no points.
When play resumed, WMU settled in a bit
and managed to cut the lead to three points, 10-7, before the roof caved in. A
9-0 Toledo run made it a 19-7 game, then a blowout, 26-2, flurry of points had
the visitors reeling and Toledo enjoying a 35-12 cushion with under a minute to
play in the half.
Things got a little testy during the
Rocket’s point parade when Western Michigan’s senior guard Taylor Manley shoved
Shafir hard to the floor as she was driving to the basket with 6:13 to play.
Manley was whistled for an intentional foul and Shafir picked herself up to make
both of her free throws.
The half ended with Toledo comfortably
ahead, 37-14. That old line, “Warm up the bus,” would have been appropriate at
this juncture.
Toledo’s trademark this season has been
its strong defense and even though the Rockets were scoring points in bunches
that trademark defense came to play as well, hounding the Broncos, disrupting
their sets, and taking away their offensive looks on almost every possession.
Toledo shot 44.1% (15-of-34) in the first
twenty minutes compared to the Broncos who managed just 5-of-20 from the floor
for 25%. UT had six assists and eight turnovers before intermission while WMU
managed just one assist against 16 miscues. If there was a downside in the first
half for the Rockets it was the team’s inability to score from outside the
three-point arc, hitting on just 2-of-13 long-distance offerings. Things would
change however in the second half.
The Rockets opened the final period with a
15-4 run that featured a pair of triples from Courtney Ingersoll and a solo shot
from Jessica Williams. When Yolanda Richardson completed the run with a layup,
the clock read 14:05 and the score was 52-18. Tricia Cullop decided to pull her
starters at this point in the game but the pain only became worse for Western
Michigan.
Playing without a point guard at times,
the Rocket reserves still put on a very impressive show for the fans, especially
with their display of long distance accuracy: junior Haylie Linn and sophomore
Riley McCormick each struck three times from outside the arc and Ingersoll added
another trey as Toledo moved out to a 67-25 lead with almost seven minutes yet
to be played.
But as happy as Cullop had to be with her
bench players on the offensive end, she must have been very pleased with the
strong defensive effort that they put forth during their minutes on the court,
allowing Western Michigan just 25 points in the second half.
In the final two minutes of the game
McDowell pulled just about all of her front-line players, letting her subs get
some playing time before the final buzzer.
In the second half Toledo shot 53.6%
(14-of-22) and finished the game shooting 51.8%. After connecting on just two
3-pointers in the opening round, the Rockets blistered the net from long
distance in the final 20 minutes, shooting 9-of-13 for 69.2%.
Four Rockets reached the double-digit mark
for the game with Shafir getting 13 points to lead all scorers. A trio of
reserves followed close behind with Ingersoll netting 12 points, and Linn and
McCormick each getting 11 markers.
Toledo committed 25 turnovers for the
game, 17 coming in the second half after the starters were on the bench.
Western Michigan finished the game
shooting 31.8% (14-of-44). The lethal combination of poor shooting and a
plethora of turnovers doomed the Broncos to defeat. The visitors committed 35
turnovers, four less then their point production on the evening. Senior forward
Ebony Cleary topped the WMU scoring with 12 points. Cleary was the only Bronco
to reach double-figures.
So dominant was Toledo in this game that
the team scored more points off of turnovers (41) than Western Michigan did
points (39). The Toledo bench scored more points (42) than the entire Western
Michigan team.
After the game, Tricia Cullop told the
members of the media: “I thought the biggest key to this game was holding
Western Michigan under 60 points, and to hold them to just 39 was a very
impressive defensive effort, better than what I thought would occur because they
have such great scorers. Cleary is a tremendous post player and the fact that we
got three fouls on her in the first half was also a key to the game. She’s
aggressive and she pretty much had her way with us when we played up at Western.
But I'm just so proud of our defensive effort. Every kid who came off of the
bench today really brought a lot of energy and really bought into the defensive
style we want to play.”
Cullop even had Toledo’s successful soccer
coach Brad Evans come in and address the team this week. “He had a great
message: to focus on the process and not the ending,” said Cullop. ”He’s done
what we want to do, and that’s win several championships, so I wanted to have
our kids hear from someone who has had that experience. I thought that he really
spoke the message of how we played tonight, and that was to focus on what got us
here.”
With the win over the Broncos, the Rockets
move ever so closer to one of their goals for the season: A
regular-season conference championship. Toledo controls its own destiny coming
into the final turn of the schedule.
The Rockets must now prepare for a tough
road game at Ball State on Saturday. The Midnight Blue and Gold beat BSU at home
on January 5 by the score of 63-46. Toledo holds a commanding 46-18 lead over
the Cardinals in the all-time series but the team hasn't won in Muncie since
2004. A total team effort like the one that took down Western Michigan at Savage
Arena might be needed to claim a road win on Saturday.