With less than two minutes remaining in the Oxford edition of this season’s Battle of the Bricks, Miami junior guard Quinten Rollins watched from underneath the basket as his wide-open layup attempt rolled off the front of the rim, harmlessly to the floor.
A similar shot bounced off the basket less than 90 seconds later, stringing together a series uglier than the one earlier in the half, when Miami had four offensive rebounds but failed to muster a putback.
The RedHawks (7-10, 2-3 Mid-American Conference) simply could not finish when called upon Wednesday on their home floor. Ohio walked away with a 74-62 win.
The Bobcats (14-5, 5-0 MAC) shot their way to victory, converting more than half their 50 shot attempts, with 12 of the 25 from long range.
Ohio coach Jim Christian was happy with his team’s performance from beyond the arc but placed his praise on the Bobcats’ big men before tipping his hat to their three-point shooters.
“The one thing I think goes unnoticed is the post players running to the rim,” he said. “That opens up the three-point shots. It’s not guys just running and getting them.”
Ohio’s scoring punch came from a variety of sources, led by senior guard D.J. Cooper, who had 17 points and nine dishes on the night. The primary benefactors of his ball movement were junior guard Nick Kellogg, who had 15 points, all from three-point range, and senior forward Ivo Baltic, who, in a double-double effort of 13 points and 12 rebounds, became the 34th Bobcat to score 1,000 career points. He also passed the 600-rebound plateau.
“A lot of that credit goes to D.J. Cooper,” Baltic said after the game, in reference to the century mark milestone.
As efficient as they were from the field, the Bobcats hit only 53 percent of their free throw shots — 17 percent worse than their season average entering the game.
They also allowed Miami, which entered the game as one of the worst rebounding teams in the country, to pick up 15 offensive boards.
That, coupled with late-game coasting similar to what Christian saw when the Bobcats were up big against Northern Illinois last Wednesday, left plenty of room for improvement in the win.
“We did so many things that are not going to help us as we try to win on the road, especially from the free throw line, especially smart decisions late, defensive and offensive rebounding late in the game — we just have to clean all that up,” Christian said.
The Bobcats went into the break leading by only seven and missed their first four shots of the second half. Over the next 4 minutes, though, they went on a 19-5 run in which they hit five straight three-pointers.
Miami was able to bridge the teams’ divide as time wore down, cutting the Bobcats’ lead to as little as 10, but did not capitalize when needed to give itself a viable shot in the game’s final minute.
Ohio accomplished what it came to Millett Hall to do, which was move to 5-0 in conference play for the first time since the 1998-1999 season. Its play may have been sporadic, but as Christian has said time and time again, basketball is a game of runs, and the Bobcats continued theirs.
jr992810@ohiou.edu
