Ball State entered Thursday night having lost five straight, including three by four points or less. Finally, the Cardinals pulled out a close win, defeating Toledo 63-59 in Worthen Arena.
Coach Tim Buckley said that his team has finally shown him the 40 minutes of play he was looking for.
"I think it was there tonight. There's no question about that," Buckley said. "Those kids fought, scratched and clawed, and it was their win.
"When all five of them play together like that, like they did tonight, defensively, then we're a good defensive team."
In the first half, the Cardinals (13-11, 8-7 Mid-American Conference) started out strong, making nearly 50 percent from the field and holding Toledo to five of 19 from the floor. However, Toledo made six of the last nine heading into halftime. The Cardinals also missed a number of key shots as the half ended, allowing the score to come within two and dropping their field-goal percentage to under 40.
Coming out of halftime, Toledo's Kareem Milson hit a short jumper after a five-second violation on Peyton Stovall, and Sammy Villegas hit a fast break layup just over a minute into the first half to give Toledo a 33-31 lead.
After Anton Currie hit a 3-pointer to give the Rockets their largest lead of the game, Stovall responded with a trey of his own. Terrance Chapman and Darren Yates made successful trips to the free-throw line and the Cards retook the lead for good.
Matt McCollom hit a wide-open 3-pointer to give the Cardinals a 50-44 lead with 7:51 left, and Ball State maintained a three-to-six point lead over the ensuing minutes.
Stovall hit two free throws with one minute remaining to give Ball State a 61-54 lead, their biggest of the second half, but Toledo's Justin Ingram hit a closely guarded 3 on the next possession, then stole the ball on the inbound play.
After Toledo maintained possession after a jump ball, Yates was called for a foul and Villegas hit both ends of a one-and-one to being Toledo within two.
Stovall threw the ball away to give the Rockets possession with 21 seconds left, but with the clock running down, Chapman fished the ball from Keith Triplett and Skip Mills grabbed it. He was fouled with 2.1 seconds remaining and hit both free throws to ensure the victory for the Cardinals.
"We made terrible decisions down the stretch," Toledo coach Stan Joplin said. "We just played bad; nobody played well for us. We had a lot of unforced turnovers. It was just bad to say the least."
Chapman scored 14 points and pulled down 11 boards to give him his eighth double-double for the season.
Leading scorer Dennis Trammell, who sat out the Drexel game, did not dress Thursday. Matt McCollom started in his place and scored seven points.
"Even though we didn't have Dennis tonight, the way our guys played, you never walked away from it and said, 'We never had Dennis tonight,"' Buckley said.
Toledo and Ball State had a combined 31 turnovers. Ball State's 16 miscues was its most since it had 19 against Akron. The Cardinals had 20 the last time they faced Toledo.
"I think both teams really pressure each other," Buckley said. "That's the one thing we talked about going into the game was you got to take care of the ball because you can't allow them to get their break started.
"When we had 20 turnovers at their place, we were kind of pitching it to them and they were heading the other way getting easy baskets, but I thought we eliminated that for the most part."
Mills was able to hold Triplett, Toledo's leading scorer, to 12 points. Triplett also pulled down just one rebound.
"I knew that he was a big part of the offense," Mills said. "I had a lot of help so I felt comfortable in trying to pressure him and make him do things he didn't want too.
"My teammates had my back if he was able to get by me. I definitely wanted to shut him down. I knew everybody else would pick it up on the defensive end, too."
The Cardinals had a poor day from the field, making only 20 of 54, but made up for it from the line, hitting 17 of 23.
"We just got to get a 'W' any way," said Stovall, who scored a game-high 18 points. "That's all that matters right now is winning. Everybody's got to come together."
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