By Zach Davis
Special to FOX Sports Ohio
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
The Rockets broke a five game losing streak and captured their first conference win of the season 73-60 against Western Michigan last night at Savage Arena. UT led from start to finish against the Broncos.
"I told the guys in the locker room we need to remember this and find a way to bottle our energy, enthusiasm and team grit from tonight," UT head coach Tod Kowalczyk said. "I thought tonight from start to finish we played with a chip on our shoulder and an edge. Let's face it, we are never going to win pretty this year. We need to win the old-fashioned way and tonight we did."
Malcolm Griffin scored a game-high 22 points and had six assists for the Rockets (4-14, 1-3 Mid-American Conference). The sophomore guard had a career-best 31 points last Saturday at Northern Illinois and has scored over 20 points for the first time in his career the last two games.
"I was just trying to get in the game so we could get a huge lead and we could be comfortable and play at our own pace," Griffin said. "That was my goal tonight. Coach tells me at the end of the game he wants the ball to be in my hands to make plays. I just tried to keep my poise and composure and not turn the ball over and make good plays so that we could score."
"I think he's playing better but he has a lot of room to improve," Kowalczyk said. "He still has some casual turnovers and doesn't guard with the intensity you want him to guard with sometimes. He's a work in progress. He's getting better and he's obviously scoring for us, but he needs to do all the little things too."
Redshirt-freshman forward Hayden Humes had a career-high 19 points against the Broncos (9-8, 2-2 MAC) and shot 11 of 16 from the free-throw line.
"We wanted to get the ball into the post to him," Kowalczyk said. "He's a guy that can out-quick guys around the basket. Tonight he did a good job of getting fouled. He should have made more than 11 foul shots. He's almost a 90-percent free throw shooter. I know I'm getting greedy, but he could have had his first 20 point night and I'm going to tell him that."
Freshmen Reese Holliday and J.T. Thomas each scored 10 while classmate Delino Dear had seven.
Western Michigan guard Demetrius Ward had 20 points while forward Flenard Whitfield had 15. Toledo double-teamed the Broncos third-leading scorer Matt Stainbrook (9.2 ppg) throughout the game and held the freshman center scoreless.
"[Stainbrook] is a very talented player," Kowalczyk said. "Their whole offense runs through him. By us doing that we certainly flustered them.
"I thought they were the best MAC team we've played thus far. Obviously the stats and standings show it."
The Rockets began MAC play with losses at home to Eastern Michigan and on the road at Central Michigan and Northern Illinois. Toledo didn't win their first conference game until Feb. 27 against Ball State last season.
"I would have liked to have got [our first conference win] a week and a half ago," Kowalczyk said. "I don't put a whole lot of thought into first MAC wins. I guess if I was a first-time head coach maybe, but that stuff doesn't enter my mind. It's about building a program the right way, and that's what we are trying to do."
"Last year we got our only conference win at the end of the season," Griffin said. "It's good to get one early to get a little more motivation so that we know we are going to have a lot more wins in conference play this year."
The Rockets jumped out to a 14-4 lead seven minutes in and stretched their lead to 14 going into halftime 37-23.
The Broncos cut the lead to single digits with 14:17 remaining at 42-35 with a three-pointer by Ward. They trimmed the lead to six with just over five minutes remaining, but Toledo pulled away late to take a 73-60 victory.
"We need to learn from this," Kowalczyk said. "This team needs to understand who they are consistently. It's about getting these guys to handle some success too, which is concerning to me."
The Rockets will look to win their second straight conference game when they take on Ball State (12-4, 4-0) on Saturday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. in Savage Arena.
