ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — Attention, Associated Press women’s basketball poll voters: Toledo belongs on your Top 25 list until proven otherwise.
On paper, the Rockets already looked like one of St. Bonaventure’s two or three toughest matchups of the non-conference slate. On the court, they proved it from the first jump ball, defeating the Bonnies 58-39 at the Reilly Center on Monday night.
Toledo (6-1) jumped out to a 17-0 lead over the first 7:24 of the contest before finally allowing two foul shots to Bona guard Mariah Ruff with 2:36 remaining in the first. SBU (4-5) did not make a field goal for eight minutes and change, until Rhianna Council swished a jump shot.
The Bonnies were only outscored 39-33 over the last 30 minutes of the game, but falling behind 19-6 during the first 10 sunk them against one of the Mid-American Conference (MAC)’s best squads.
“You can’t get down 17-0 and expect to have some success,” Bonnies coach Jesse Fleming stated. “It was frustrating because… we only had three first-quarter turnovers (and) I thought the looks were reasonably good. I thought that if we could just get a couple of them to fall early, we could’ve had some success.”
Rockets center Kaayla McIntyre used a distinct size advantage to muscle her way over SBU double teams and record her third double-double of the season, with 14 points and 13 rebounds. Having an inside force like McIntyre allowed Toledo to play an inside-out game, with Jay Bravo-Harriott making five of her six two-point attempts from mid-range.
Bravo-Harriott and McIntyre made just three fewer field goals (12) than Bonaventure did as a team (15-of-55). The Rockets’ offense wasn’t perfect, committing 19 turnovers, but its defense stifled the brown and white for three of four quarters; Bona was able to shoot over 50 percent (6-of-11) in the second, but only made 20 percent of its shots otherwise.
The rebounding department carried a resounding 50-33 edge for Toledo, including a 14-5 advantage on the offensive boards. Danielle Migliore was the only Bonnie to score in double figures, with 11 points on 4-of-11 shooting. Migliore was also the only one on her team to make a three; she went 3-for-10, while the rest of the team went 0-for-14.
Fleming assessed that the ball movement was improved from last Wednesday’s Delaware loss, and considering his team only made 15 field goals, assisting on seven of them is a good ratio. Emily Calabrese, Mariah Ruff and Jalisha Terry each dished out two dimes, but for the most part, the basket seemed to be covered.
“We’re running an open-post offense where basically every spot is on the three-point line, so a three’s gotta go in for us to be successful at times,” Fleming said. “They’re a great rotational team, so 20 points in the paint against them isn’t a bad number because they really do always rotate and they’ve always got an extra guy in the paint… 17 or 18 of those threes were open looks, where we’d say, ‘Hey, that’s the kind of shot we want to take,’ either rhythm in transition or through some ball movement.
“When you’re down 17-0 and fighting back, every three has a little bit more pressure on it. I think that was where there were some struggles as well.”
Since making eight of its 15 three-point attempts at Bucknell on Nov. 21, Bona has gone 27-of-93 (29 percent) from behind the arc in the last four games
Rather than being overly frustrated at a poor start and disappointing execution, the second-year coach’s message contained a string of positivity. He even channelled another young coach, who happens to direct on the gridiron.
“It’s weird to say, sitting here after a 19-point loss and only scoring 39 points, and maybe the film will disprove me- I thought we played better than we did against Delaware; I really did,” Fleming said. “I thought we moved the ball better, I thought we took care of it better. The looks just weren’t falling, unfortunately, and defensively I think we made a lot of mistakes.
“Not to sound like (Buffalo Bills head coach) Sean McDermott here, because he’s not my favorite right now, but we have been trying to focus on the process and what kind of quality of shots are we taking… I thought we started to play a little more like I want us to play, so I was encouraged there.”