Maybe it was the eight o’clock start time. Maybe it was the presence of Toledo’s all time rushing leader in football, Chester Taylor, at the game. Maybe it was the realization that the basketball season is rushing toward its eleventh hour, and the team needs to pick up some wins in bunches to earn a tournament first-round home game.

For whatever reason, the Toledo Rockets came out Tuesday evening and laid some big-time smack on Kent State at Savage Hall as they powered past the East Division leaders, 60-44.

Both teams came out playing some jacked-up defense against each other, and for a good part of the first-half the scoring was all but shut down. At the first media timeout the score was just 4-4, and four minutes later it had improved only a whisper, to 6-6. Some fans even became confused and began looking to see if football’s Defensive Coordinator Tim Rose might not be on the bench, working on some new sets.

By the third media timeout at 7:19, Kent had struggled out to heady 14-12 lead.

But right about then, the Rockets must have located their scoring mojo because they began to assert themselves on the scoreboard. First, Jerrah Young, spelling Tini Valencia, connected on a jumper and a layup to make the score, 16-15. Then Kashif Payne stole the ball from Kent’s Nate Gerwig and went the distance for another two points. Those six points were the front end of a 24-9 run that had Toledo up, 32-23 at the half.

UT went into the locker room shooting 56% from the floor, hitting on 14-of-25 attempts while Kent could connect on just 7-of-19, for 36.8% Both teams were a combined 0-of-11 tries from beyond the arc.

Valencia had nine points to lead the Rocket scorers, while his backup, Young had eight markers. “It was very important for me to come in and give Tino a break, to pick up where he left off, because he’s been doing a great job all season.” Young remarked.

The second half was all Toledo. Justin Ingram hit a three-pointer, the first for either team, to open the Rocket’s scoring and UT then began to methodically build on its lead. A 14-6 run with some serious inside play soon had the Rockets up, 46-29, and Kent was reeling from the fouls that the Flashes began to accumulate while trying to counter Toledo’s drives to the basket. The visitors had 14 fouls in the second half, just about all of them sending a Rocket to the foul line.