TOLEDO, Ohio - The Western Michigan men's basketball team took one of the top teams in the Mid-American Conference down to the wire on the road, but Toledo overcame a second-half deficit in defeating the Broncos 96-85 at Savage Arena on Saturday. With the loss, the Broncos fall to 19-9 on the season and 12-4 in MAC play, putting them in a three-way tie with Buffalo and Toledo for first place overall.
The Broncos jumped on the Rockets early, taking a 45-33 lead into the locker room at halftime and holding a 75-63 edge with 3:18 left to play. However, the Rockets went on a 14-0 run to take a 77-75 lead with 48 seconds to play, taking the advantage on a pair of free throws from Jonathan Williams. Tucker Haymond sunk a pair of free throws with 34 seconds left to tie the game, but Toledo out-scored WMU 19-8 in the extra session to steal the victory.
Shayne Whittington recorded his fifth straight double-double, notching 25 points on 11-of-14 shooting from the field and a total of 13 rebounds. David Brown led all scorers in the contest with 29 points while also adding three assists and a steal. Haymond finished the game with 14 points on an efficient 4-of-5 performance from the field and a perfect 5-of-5 mark from the free throw line.
The first half of the game was all Broncos as Haymond quickly went on a personal 5-0 run, scoring on a lay-up to open the proceedings and draining a three-pointer from behind a screen at the 18:25 mark to make it 5-0. Brown made a back door cut and converted it into a lay-up off a feed from Whittington to make it 7-2, and the lead exploded to 10 points when Austin Richie banged home a three-pointer with 12:44 remaining in the half to make it 17-7.
Toledo cut the deficit to just three points late in the half, when Williams made a mid-range jumper with 6:24 left to make it 29-26. Whittington responded with an easy lay-up around Zach Garber on the next possession, and again went around Garber with 5:26 left to make it a seven-point game. Brown extended the lead back to double-digits with a triple from the left corner, making it 36-26, and made a jumper from the head of the key on the next possession to make it a 12-point game. Brown had one more make in the first half, scoring again on a backdoor cut with 39 seconds left to make it 45-33 at the intermission.
The lead reached its high point late in the second half, after Haymond converted an and-one with 8:18 to play to make it 62-49. Brown kept the lead at 13 points with an and-one of his own, drawing a foul from Nathan Boothe and making the free throw with 7:04 to play. That's when Toledo began whittling down the lead, though they wouldn't cut it to single digits for good until Williams converted the old fashioned three-point play with 3:00 on the clock. Boothe drained a three-pointer with 2:41 left in regulation to cut the lead to six points, and Toledo completed the comeback to send it to overtime.
