The Toledo Rockets were down 14 points in the first half, down 11 at halftime, and staring at an 0-3 start to the season. They left Huntington, West Virginia, with their first win instead, rallying past Marshall 81-76 on Saturday afternoon at the Henderson Center, Toledo Athletics and Marshall University Athletics both reported.
Marshall led 38-27 at halftime and by as many as 14 points, 25-11, with 8:43 left in the first half, according to Marshall Athletics. The Thundering Herd’s Bryce Slay scored a career-high 23 points, including Marshall’s first 14 points of the game, and Noah Otshudi added 22, Marshall Athletics reported. On the numbers at the break, the game looked settled.
It was not. Toledo outscored Marshall 54-38 in the second half, shooting 55.6 percent after halftime after making just 30 percent of its shots in the first half, Toledo Athletics reported via the Mid-American Conference. The comeback was built as much on defense as on shooting: Toledo recorded 13 steals and scored 22 points off turnovers, while Marshall scored nine points off Toledo’s five turnovers, the MAC recap reported.
Two Rockets carried the scoring load, and they did it in different ways. Angel Montas Jr. scored 20 points off the bench on 8-of-14 shooting, giving Toledo a spark its starting group had not found in the first half, Toledo Athletics reported. Mynor Strong also scored 20, with 16 of them in the second half, tied a Toledo school record with seven steals, went 7-of-7 from the free-throw line and grabbed four rebounds, according to the recap reported by Frenetic Pace Sports from Toledo Athletics figures.
“I was not very happy with how we played in the first half, but we played hard, played together and made free throws when it mattered the most,” Toledo head coach Tod Kowalczyk told Frenetic Pace Sports. “That was a hell of a win for us,” Kowalczyk told Frenetic Pace Sports. The free-throw detail matters in a five-point road win: Strong’s perfect night at the line came in exactly the stretch when Marshall was trying to take the game back.
Sean Jones added 11 points and a game-high nine assists for Toledo, Jaylan Ouwinga scored 11 with six rebounds, and Austin Parks scored nine with a team-high eight rebounds, Toledo Athletics reported. For Marshall, Erich Harding grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds and Khaman Maker added 10 rebounds, Marshall Athletics reported, but the Herd could not convert that work on the glass into a second-half stop when it needed one.
The turning points came in layers. Toledo took its first lead since the opening minutes at 56-55 with 9:57 remaining, Marshall Athletics reported. The game featured 14 lead changes and five ties, with nine lead changes in the second half alone. Jones finally gave Toledo the lead for good, hitting two free throws and a layup for a 73-69 edge with 3:18 to play, Toledo Athletics reported via the MAC. Marshall, down three in the final minute, missed a pair of potential game-tying three-pointers, Marshall Athletics reported.
Marshall head coach Cornelius ‘Corny’ Jackson framed the loss around that halftime swing in comments reported by Marshall University Athletics on HerdZone. “I thought we played well in the first half, we played with the energy that we needed. We came out in the second half, we relaxed, for whatever reason, we didn’t have the same juice as we had in the first half. We warned the guys at halftime, the most irrelevant score in basketball is the halftime score,” Jackson told Marshall Athletics. “We have to shift our focus to Ohio State. Every loss, depending on how you look at it, is a lesson,” he told Marshall Athletics.
The background makes the win larger than a single November Saturday. Toledo opened 0-2 and was facing a third straight loss after falling behind 25-11; instead the Rockets are 1-2, with a road win built on a school-record-tying steals performance. Marshall fell to 1-1 with its first loss of the season. It is the kind of early-season result that changes a locker room’s week, even if it changes nothing yet in the Mid-American Conference standings.
Toledo basketball has already given Savage Arena a full weekend, as NewsForce247 reported when Michigan State’s women beat Toledo 72-64 at Savage Arena, and the Rockets’ football team showed the same road resilience when Toledo’s ground game and defense carried the Rockets to a 20-17 win at Sacramento State. Northwest Ohio’s other home opener is next on the calendar, with Bowling Green hosting Cleveland State on Monday after its 1,500th win.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: Toledo beat Marshall 81-76 after trailing 38-27 at halftime; Montas and Strong each scored 20; Strong tied the school record with seven steals; and Jones put Toledo ahead for good with 3:18 left, per Toledo Athletics and Marshall Athletics. What we’re still waiting on is only the next test — whether that second-half defense travels home with the Rockets for their own opener.
What happens next is immediate. Toledo hosts Wright State, 2-0, on Tuesday, November 10, at 7 p.m. at Savage Arena in its home opener, Toledo Athletics reported. Marshall plays at Ohio State on Monday evening, November 9, at 6 p.m. on Big Ten Network, Marshall Athletics reported — a fixture, not a result, and a quick chance for the Herd to answer Jackson’s lesson.
Photo: JonRidinger, CC BY-SA