TOLEDO, Ohio – Six Rockets scored in double figures as Toledo (8-3) cruised into its holiday break with a wire-to-wire 95-63 domination of Conference USA foe Marshall (7-6) on Tuesday night in Savage Arena.
"I'm really proud of the complete effort our guys put forth tonight," said Head Coach
Tod Kowalczyk after the Rockets registered their fifth straight win in their series with the Thundering Herd. "We obviously had a great start defensively. When our defense gives our offense life like that, we're hard to defend. The best part is we're a team that's going to continue to get better. Now it's about the regular season, and our goal is to repeat as MAC champions."
Sophomore
Ryan Rollins topped Toledo with a game-high 23 points, while junior
RayJ Dennis contributed 20 points and a team-high five assists. Also scoring in double digits were junior
Keshaun Saunders (14 pts.), junior
JT Shumate (12 pts.), redshirt freshman
Ra'Heim Moss (12 pts.) and junior
Setric Millner Jr. (10 pts.).
Senior Taevion Kinsey paced the Thundering Herd with 19 points on 7-of-23 shooting.
Toledo shot 52.8 percent from the field, 57.1 percent (8-of-14) from three-point range and was 11-of-12 (91.7 percent) from the charity stripe. The Rockets limited Marshall to a 32.1 percent shooting mark and 22.9 percent clip (8-of-35) from behind the three-point arc.
Toledo also dominated the glass by a 51-40 margin with Shumate's nine rebounds leading the way.
Toledo returns to action on Wednesday, Dec. 29 when it begins defense of last year's MAC title vs. Western Michigan. Tip-off time in Savage Arena is set for 7:00 p.m.
HOW IT HAPPENED
FIRST HALF
- Toledo surged to an early 16-2 lead and never looked back. RayJ Dennis hit a three-pointer and Setric Millner Jr. followed with a three-point play for the contest's initial six points.
- Ryan Rollins then capped off a 10-0 burst with a layup and a dunk for a 16-2 lead at the 16:29 mark.
- JT Shumate buried a triple less than two minutes later for a 21-4 cushion.
- The Thundering Herd rallied to trim Toledo's lead to 29-21 with 8:12 left in the half but that single-digit deficit was short-lived.
- Another 10-0 spurt ignited by a Shumate jumper increased the Rockets' margin to 20 points, 44-24, 4:32 before halftime.
- Millner's triple gave Toledo its largest lead of the half, 54-30, 35 seconds before intermission.
- Toledo shot 60.5 percent in the opening 20 minutes and limited the visitors to 27.5 percent on its way to a 54-31 halftime advantage.
SECOND HALF
- The closest the Thundering Herd came in the second half was 19 points, 54-35, just over two minutes into the second stanza.
- Toledo ended any hopes of a Marshall comeback when Dennis hit a three-pointer at the end of a 7-0 spurt to give the Rockets a 75-47 lead with 10:03 to play.
Head Coach Tod Kowalczyk post-game.
Junior RayJ Dennis post-game.
