For the first 30 minutes of the game it look liked Ball State’s men’s basketball game against Toledo was going to come down to who had the final possession.
Ball State lost focus for seven minutes and couldn’t recover as they took the 85-78 loss.
In the match-up between two comparable Mid-American Conference West foes, the first half saw both teams doing what they wanted to do.
Toledo was getting penetration into the paint, primarily from sophomore point guard Julius Brown, who had seven assists in the first half. And then finding the open man after Ball State’s rotation would dissipate.
The Rockets got the MAC’s leading scorer junior guard Rian Pearson productive touches, and he had 12 points at half.
On the other side of the court Ball State was putting on a clinic on the boards, something they have become accustomed to doing this season. Ball State had 21 rebounds, including 10 offensive, at half.
The teams exchanged blows all half, and after a put-back by Ball State’s junior forward Majok Majok just before time expired, Ball State led 37-35.
The second half opened with a 10-minute period of the teams trading baskets, with Pearson and Majok asserting themselves as the focal point of each team’s offense.
Then at the 11:42 mark Majok went for his second thunderous dunk within the minute. Majok missed the dunk, and it started a series of sloppiness for the Cardinals, and saw any momentum they had come to an abrupt stop.
Over the next seven minutes the Rockets went on a 23-9 run that buried the Cardinals in a hole too deep to climb out of.
During that stretch the Cardinals really couldn’t get anything going within themselves. Toledo capitalized on six Ball State turnovers, most of which were careless mistakes.
“A lot of [the turnovers] were unforced,” coach Billy Taylor said. “Whether it was just a bad pass, a bad decision, a bad read, we took our eyes of the ball or we just didn’t make a good basketball play.”
The mental mistakes leaked over to the defensive side of the ball for Ball State as well. Toledo junior forward Matt Smith went 5-6 from behind the arc, and hit several threes that felt like backbreakers. He got most of his open looks because of defenders going under flare-screens or just not bodying up close enough.
“He’s a terrific shooter, and we knew going in you had to force the dribble on him,” Taylor said.
The Cardinals stayed competitive all the way to the end, and thanks to some uncharacteristically poor free throw shooting from Toledo, Ball State made enough of a surge to bring the game within three, and kept the fans who showed up in their seats until the very end.
Outside of that seven-minute period, this was a game that felt very winnable for Ball State.
“It think it was [a game that we let get away],” senior guard Jauwan Scaife said. “Even when we were down 14 points with three minutes to go, we still felt like we could win.”
The Cardinals are now 0-3 in MAC play at home, and with five more home games before the conference tournament, the pressure is on to start winning.
“We have to find a way to protect our home floor,” Scaife said.
