Rockets Close Out 2020 with Dominating 78-55 Win Over NIU

Tuesday, December 22

Toledo, Ohio

2:00 p.m.

University of Toledo

7-3,2-0MAC

Northern Illinois

1-6,0-2MAC

Northern Ill.

Toledo

Senior Spencer Littleson scored 18 points in Toledo's 78-55 win over NIU.

Photo by: Ross Achter

Rockets Close Out 2020 with Dominating 78-55 Win Over NIU

12/22/2020 5:20:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Final Stats (PDF)

TOLEDO, Ohio – Toledo closed out 2020 with a dominating 78-55 Mid-American Conference triumph over Northern Illinois on Tuesday afternoon in Savage Arena. The Rockets' victory extended their winning streak to a season-high four games and kept them perfect in four contests on their homecourt.

"I thought we were really locked in defensively today," Head Coach Tod Kowalczyk said. "We stayed in front of the dribble against a very physical rebounding team. It was a very solid win for us and now we can look forward to the holidays before having a chance to gets some practices in next week."

Senior Spencer Littleson led Toledo (7-3, 2-0 MAC) with a game-high 18 points, thanks to a 4-of-8 shooting performance behind the three-point arc. Freshman Ryan Rollins registered his second double-double, tallying 16 points and a game-high 11 rebounds to help the Rockets to a 43-33 advantage on the boards.

Also posting double-digit scoring totals for Toledo were redshirt freshman Mattia Acunzo (season-high 15 pts., six reb.) and senior Marreon Jackson (11 pts.).

Junior Trendon Hankerson and sophomore Tyler Cochran topped NIU (1-6, 0-2 MAC) with 16 and 15 points, respectively.

Toledo shot 47.4 percent from the field and was 12-of-30 (40.0 percent) from behind the three-point arc. The Rockets limited the Huskies to a 36.7 shooting mark from the field, including a miniscule 1-of-15 clip from three-point range.

Toledo will take a short holiday break before resuming action on Saturday, Jan. 2 with a trip to Kalamazoo, Mich. to face Western Michigan (2-5, 1-1 MAC).

HOW IT HAPPENED

FIRST HALF

Spencer Littleson buried a pair of treys to open the game to propel the Rockets to an early 8-0 lead.
Mattia Acunzo's three-pointer capped off a 10-0 spurt to increase Toledo's cushion to 20-4 at the 12:33 mark.
Ryan Rollins' triple gave the Rockets their largest lead, 32-11, just over seven minutes before halftime.
A 13-2 NIU spurt trimmed Toledo's advantage to 34-24 at the 2:35 mark, but the Rockets closed the half strong and took a 40-26 lead to the locker room.

SECOND HALF

The Rockets' cushion didn't go over 15 points for the first five minutes of the second stanza before a Marreon Jackson triple and Mattia Acunzo layup increased their margin to 54-34 with 13:55 remaining.
Toledo's lead didn't dip below 15 points the remainder of the contest.
The Rockets scored the game's final seven points to account for the final margin of victory.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

Toledo snapped a three-game losing streak in its series vs. the Huskies.
Ryan Rollins registered his second double-double as a Rocket.
Setric Millner dished out a career-high six assists to go along with nine points and eight rebounds.

Highlights from Toledo's win over Northern Illinois.