On Monday, Jarrod Jones said his scoring slump was going to come to an end pretty soon.
However, on Wednesday against Toledo, Jones only scored 11 points in 28 minutes and the scoring slump continues.
"I personally look at my performance over these last four games," Jones said. "It starts with Randy [Davis] and I. As the senior captains, as long as we don't get down, our team won't get down. It's going to take Randy and I stepping up and getting this thing turned around."
Toledo was nearly unstoppable from behind the arc as the Rockets defeated Ball State 63-55, giving the Cardinals their seventh consecutive loss. The seven-game losing streak is the longest such streak for Ball State since the 2007-08 season.
"Coming into this game, I talked to our guys about coming in with tremendous effort and I think we did that," coach Billy Taylor said. "It came down to Toledo got hot and made some shots. They've got some guys that can shoot the three. That really hurt us."
Toledo (12-14, 4-8) came into the game shooting 31 percent from 3-point range in MAC games.
They shot well over that percentage, shooting over 70 percent from deep against Ball State's defense. At one point, Ball State led the conference in scoring defense.
Ball State (12-12, 4-8) went into the locker room only down 22-21, but a 12-3 run by Toledo to start the second half, which included three 3-pointers from Curtis Dennis, gave the Rockets a lead the Cardinals couldn't rebound from.
In his first game back, sophomore forward Tyler Koch did what he could in the second half to keep pace with the Rockets' 3-point shooting with a 3-for-5 effort from deep.
"In the second half, we were just seeing what they were doing in the first half," Dennis said. "They were chasing over to our flares so we just spaced it out, and when we drove, we were able to curl the threes."
At one point in the second half, Toledo hit six 3-pointers in six minutes. The Rockets finished 12-for-17 from 3-point range, eight of those coming in the second half.
Taylor stayed as positive as one could after his team just dropped their seventh in a row. Ball State hasn't seen this long of a losing streak since Taylor's first season as coach five years ago. The team went finished 6-24 that season.
"For the seniors, we follow their lead," Taylor said. "They lead our team and we have tremendous confidence in them. They want to play better, we all know that. We're going to continue to work with them and try to show them opportunities where they can be more successful."
Jones and Davis were limited throughout the contest. Jones didn't get his first bucket until three minutes were left in the first half.
Sophomore guard Jesse Berry came off the bench to lead Ball State in scoring with 17 points on 4-for-9 from 3-point range. Koch followed with 13 points and Jones finished with 15 rebounds.
Dennis led all Toledo scorers with 17 points while Dominique Buckley chipped in 11 points.
"Right now I know we're in a funk," Jones said. "It's just being positive. Every team goes through peaks and valleys. Right now, this is a pretty low valley."
For more coverage on men's basketball, follow @JoshJBlessing on Twitter.
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