TOLEDO, Ohio – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team started Saturday's game at the University of Toledo without usual starting center Max Rothschild, who did not even make the trip to Ohio with the team. His replacement in the lineup, Michael Wang, appeared to roll his ankle less than eight minutes into the game and was lost for the day to crutches.
 
With the frontcourt significantly depleted, Penn's starting guards shot 5-of-24 from the field including several missed layups both open and contested.
 
This was not the day for all those things to happen.
 
The opponent on Saturday was a Toledo team that entered the contest 11-1 and had won nine games in a row. The streak went to 10 as the Rockets used a massive second half to earn a 77-45 victory over the Quakers. Penn fell to 10-3 overall and saw its own six-game win streak snapped.
 
Notes
*Penn had season lows in points (45), field-goal percentage (30.5) and assists (7), and the Quakers' 18 second-half points was a low in the Steve Donahue coaching era.
 
*Junior AJ Brodeur scored 19 points to lead all scorers in Saturday's game, and surpassed 1,000 points for his Penn career on a tip-in with 8:33 left in the second half. He is the 41st player in program history to reach the milestone and reached the mark in his 74th career game.

*For the first time this season, Penn lost when Brodeur reached double figures in scoring; previously the Quakers were 10-0 in such games.
 
*Brodeur has now scored 90 points in Penn's last five games (18.0 ppg) and 111 over the last seven contests (15.8 ppg).
 
*Brodeur also tied a career high with four steals and matched his season best with three blocked shots.
 
*Freshman Bryce Washington had nine rebounds, a season/career high.
 
*Senior Antonio Woods scored eight points, all of them in the game's first 12 minutes.
 
How It Happened
Last year, Penn led Toledo by four points at halftime at The Palestra but then got outscored by 17 points in the second half. It was even worse this time around, as the Rockets outscored the Quakers 43-18 on Saturday at Savage Arena.
 
This was one of the most anticipated mid-major games of the season, given the team's fast starts, and for much of the first half it lived up to the billing. Penn led 17-13 with just over 11 minutes left when Wang went down grabbing a defensive rebound, and after trying to grit his way up and down the court once he came out for good at a timeout. Given that Rothschild hadn't made the trip, and Brodeur was already in situational subbing with two fouls, it felt like Penn was living on borrowed time.
 
That proved to be the case. After Wang's injury, the Quakers were outscored 64-28 the rest of the way.
 
Penn was game for a little while, still holding a 25-22 lead with less than five minutes to play in the period before Toledo went on an 8-0 run and took a 34-27 lead at the break.
 
The wheels finally came off early in the second half. Brodeur knocked down a jumper to make the score 38-32 three minutes into the period, but Toledo reeled off back-to-back three-pointers and that was the start of a run that eventually stretched to 13-3, 19-5, 25-7, and finally 39-13.
 
Up Next
Penn plays one final game in 2018 on Monday, hosting winless Monmouth on Macquarie Court at The Palestra. Tipoff between the Quakers and the Hawks is slated for 1 p.m.