Saturday afternoon, Ball State (8-9, 2-3) returned home to take on Toledo (10-7, 4-1). Following the matchup, graduate student Ethan Britain-Watts and senior Payton Sparks sat in the media room with blank stares across their faces and in a deafening silence.

The Cardinals fell to the Rockets 93-75 in a matchup where the home team struggled to compete according to Ball State head coach Michael Lewis.

“We lacked a real competitiveness which is more bothersome than not being able to defend them. They not only just beat us, they whipped us one on one,” Lewis said.

Throughout the first half, the offense for Ball State was flowing smoothly, ending the first half with three players, Sparks, Britain-Watts and senior Mickey Pearson Jr., all hitting double digits. The home team was able to shoot 48 percent from the field and notched eight assists in the first half alone.

Britain-Watts matched his season high in scoring in conference play with ten points in the half as well.

“It was a complete wasted offensive effort because we played really good offense, but we just couldn’t seem to stop them at all,” Lewis said.

The defense was something that Lewis harped on after the Cardinals lost on the road to Ohio, but there wasn’t much change in that category against the visiting Rockets.

“We just didn’t have enough fight,” Britain-Watts said. “They came down and scored whenever they wanted and it gets to a point where we all as a group have to say ‘enough is enough.’”

With defense becoming a more glaring weakness of the Cardinals in the last two games, moving forward there’s a sense of being exposed to their opponents through the rest of the season.

“Ohio and Toledo both exposed us in a lot of ways,” Lewis said. “It’s out there, and you’re either going to stand up and fight or you’re going to run away from it. Us as adults have to be better at equipping kids with what it takes to stand up and fight instead of just running away from problems and pointing fingers.”

In the second half, the frustration and annoyances of the Cardinals slowly became more prevalent on the court and on the sideline. In the moments Toledo began to pull away in the second half, junior Juanse Gorosito was subbed out of the game and when he returned to the bench, his emotions got the best of him.

The Argentina native slammed down his water bottle on the bench and made a quick exit to the tunnel where assistant coaches followed and brought him back to the sideline.

“That’s just an immature kid not equipped to handle adversity,” Lewis said. “It’s my job to help him through that.”

With the second half starting to slip away, Ball State struggled with rebounding in the half which allowed the navy and gold to rack up 11 offensive rebounds in the second half alone which led to 26 second-chance points for the visitors.

“We have to just start to care on the defensive end,” Sparks said. “At a certain point in time we just got to do it and fight.”

As a collective, there were a plethora of emotions running high after the Cardinals loss, but Lewis was focused on the translation of what athletics teaches his players in responding to conflict and adversity moving forward in this season and throughout life.

“That's why I think athletics is so good because it forces people to deal with adversity,” Lewis said. “But the problem is, a lot of these guys, these age, it's not their fault. They haven't been forced to do that. They just go on this team, that team, transfer schools, run from this coach, run from that coach, instead of an adult in their life being like no man like this is where you figure it out.”

To have that change in mentality and ultimately culture, there is a sense of ownership according to the upperclassmen for taking on this Ball State team in order to lead that change.

“It starts from the seniors and the older guys,” Britain-Watts said. “We gotta be better and then underclassmen will see that, hopefully learn and keep doing things like we do. We gotta demand it first, and then it will grow.

“Each person on the team has to be able to take hard coaching, hard, constructive criticism, handle it, respond the right way, and that should trickle down, but we just haven't been consistent enough in that area thus far, which is why we're eight and nine.

“Win one game, play really well, lose the next game, play super bad. It's kind of what we're doing every day.”

Ball State will begin a two-game road trip as they travel to Mount Pleasant, Michigan to take on Central Michigan (8-9, 2-3) on Tuesday Jan. 21. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.

Contact David Moore with comments at david.moore@bsu.edu or on X @gingninj63

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