TOLEDO, OH ? Toledo tied its season high with 25 turnovers and suffered a 73-65 setback to Bradley on Monday in front of 1,937 fans at Savage Arena. With the loss, the Rockets drop their first home game of the season and slip to 4-7 overall.
Sophomore Melissa Goodall led UT with a season-high 18 points, four rebounds and two steals. Goodall has scored in double figures in four-consecutive games and is averaging a team-high 11.6 points and 8.0 caroms since entering the starting lineup five contests ago, while shooting a sizzling 56.4 percent (22-of-39) from the field.
Junior Tanika Mays added 15 points with a team-best eight rebounds in a losing effort, while sophomore Jessica Williams chipped in 11 points.
The Rockets were held to 34.0 percent (17-of-50) shooting from the floor and 26.7 percent (4-of-15) from beyond the arc. Toledo did, though, connect on a season-high 84.4 percent (27-of-32) from the charity stripe to keep the game close throughout.
"I'm extremely happy with our effort at the free-throw line, but I'm equally disappointed with our amount of turnovers," Toledo Head Coach Tricia Cullop said. "There is a narrow margin of error when you compete against a good team like Bradley, and they made us pay when we made mistakes."
Michelle Lund paced a balanced BU (8-2) attack with 13 points, while Sonya Harris (12 pts.), Skye Johnson (11 pts.), Aseer Itiavkase (11 pts.) and Monica Rogers (10 pts.) also finished in double figures. Harris and Itiavkase both came off the bench to spark a decisive 27-10 advantage in reserve points. As a team, Bradley shot a respectable 45.5 percent (25-of-55) from the field, including 55.6 percent (5-of-9) from three-point land, and 75.0 percent (18-of-24) from the free-throw line to defeat the Rockets for the second-consecutive season.
"They are an athletic and physical team," said Goodall, whose squad was also rebounded, 38-30, and outscored in points in the paint, 28-12. "They are also an extremely good rebounding team and they showed it tonight."
Toledo started tonight's contest slow and missed 11 of its first 13 shots from the floor, falling behind 15-10. The Midnight Blue and Gold were also guilty of eight miscues in the first 10 minutes to dig themselves an early hole.
"It's make things pretty tough when you start a game flat," Goodall said. "Despite the slow start, we weren't that far behind, but then we made some silly mistakes and let their pressure get to us. We also weren't running our sets right and just repeatedly shot ourselves in the foot."
UT played catch up as the first half wore on and four-consecutive points from BU's Johnson made the score, 27-19, at 5:11.
A little less than two minutes later, a fast-break layup by the Braves' Harris and a jumper from Lund pushed the deficit to 33-21, forcing the home team into a timeout.
The closest UT would get the remainder of the period was six points and they trailed 36-27 at the intermission. Toledo has now fell behind by at least nine points in the opening half in seven of the first 11 games.
"I knew we were going to be in a fight because I have a lot of respect and admiration for Bradley and their coaching staff," said Cullop, who coached against the Braves in the Missouri Valley Conference for the past eight seasons. "Bradley's speed and athleticism presented some matchup problems for us and was probably the reason we started off so poorly. We didn't do a good job containing and rotating on defense, as well as boxing out in that first half."
The Rockets opened the second period with some spark and baskets from freshman Naama Shafir and Goodall cut the margin to five points, 36-31, at 19:16.
Unfortunately, that momentum did not last long and another triple from Lund followed by a jumper from Rogers pushed the lead back to double digits, 41-31, with 18:23 remaining.
The visitors kept their foot on the accelerator and utilized an 11-2 run midway through the period to open up a 54-38 edge at the 12:09 mark.
The Rockets did not roll over, though, and went on a mini 10-4 run to close within 58-48 at 8:44. Goodall fueled the surge with two field goals and a pair of free throws.
"I thought our press created some positive steals and turnovers, which led to some easy baskets," Cullop said. "Our pressure got us going there so awhile, but we couldn't sustain that momentum for a long period of time and came up short."
With the clock starting to become a factor, Toledo tried mightily to claw its way back and two charity tosses by Shafir made the tally, 61-54, with only 5:33 showing.
The Rockets left everything on the court down the stretch but just could not pull any closer than four points and suffered the eight-point loss.
"I'm really proud of our players for not hanging their heads when we were down 14 points and continuing to fight to the end," Cullop said. "One comment I told them after the game was maybe we didn't come away with the win, but I can come away with appreciating the effort that they gave. They tried everything they could to win this game."
The Rockets will now take the next seven days off for the holiday season returning to action on Tuesday, Dec. 30 against Horizon League member Youngstown State. Tipoff from Savage Arena is slated for 7:00 p.m.
