Eastern Michigan Athletics
Eastern Michigan University
Toledo
Men's Basketball Drops 70-59 MAC West Battle to Visiting Toledo
2/22/2006 9:51:53 PM | Men's Basketball
Senior John Bowler leads the Eagles with 29th double-double
YPSILANTI, Mich
.--The Eastern Michigan University men’s basketball team ran into a hot-shooting University of Toledo squad here Wednesday night in the Convocation Center and dropped a 70-59 Mid-American West Division game.The loss drops EMU to 6-18 overall and 2-13 in league play while Toledo improves to 14-10 overall and 7-8 in the MAC.
Senior John Bowler (Chicago, Ill.-Notre Dame H.S.) turned in the 29th double-double of his career with 29 points and 15 rebounds while Danny McElhinny (Hermitage, Penn.-Kennedy Catholic) added 14 for the Eagles.
Toledo, which led the entire way, was led by Justin Ingram with 23 points with 11 rebounds while Sammy Villegas added 14 points and Justin Ingram added . The Rockets connected on 22-of-53 shots from the field for 41.5 percent, including making 7-of-18 three-point field goals.The Eagles meanwhile made just 37.2 percent of their shots, hitting 16-of-43. The Rockets forced EMU into 24 turnovers in the game.
"They (Toledo)are ultra quick, very aggressive and lead the MAC in steals," Ramsey said of the Rockets. "You have to attack them and we didn’t do that, we just froze up."
The visitors started the game with a three-point flurry on offense and some tough defense, out-scoring the Eagles, 17-10 over the first 10 minutes of the game. Toledo connected on four straight three-point field goals to open the game to run out to a 10-point lead, but the Eagles came right back with some three-point medicine of their own, with Danny McElhinny accounting for two to keep Eastern within striking distance.
The Toledo defense continued to stifle the Eagles, however, as the Rockets built a nine-point lead, 19-10, with seven minutes left but Eastern battled right back with six unanswered points to make it 19-16 Toledo with 4:40 left in the half.
The Rockets took advantage of some sloppy play by the Eagles over the last two minutes of the half to take an 11-point halftime lead, 32-21.
The second half started like a replay of the first with Toledo scoring four quick points for a 15-point lead but McElhinny hit a three followed by a basket and free throw by Bowler to cut the Rockets’ lead to 38-27.
Toledo then went back to the three-point basketball and a triple by Sammy Villegas gave Toledo its biggest lead, 45-27, with 14:36 left in the game. Bowler finally snapped a three-minute EMU drought with two free throws.
The two teams traded buckets from that point on with Toledo building a 64-50 lead with 1:06, but the Eagles kept battling and managed to pull within 10, 64-54, with one minute left on two free throws by Bowler and a layup by Travis Lewis (Kalamazoo, Mich.-Loy Norrix), but Toledo made their foul shots over the last minute to record the 11-point win.
EMU will be idle until heading to DeKalb, Illinois for a Sunday contest.
