Ohio senior guard D.J. Cooper had 14 points and six assists against Akron in the teams’ first meeting of the season.
No one told him to shoulder the burden for the 14-point loss, but he did — saying several times that his play allowed the Zips to come from a double-digit deficit and pull away midway through the second half.
Cooper vowed that won’t be the case when Akron, the winner of an NCAA-best 18-straight games, come to town Wednesday for a game that is regarded as the culmination of the Mid-American Conference regular-season slate.
“I put that game on me because I’m a senior guard and it won’t happen Wednesday,” he said.
Ohio (20-7, 11-1 MAC) coach Jim Christian said Cooper’s tendency to take the blame for the Bobcats’ bad performances is characteristic of a respected floor general and locker room figure.
“Good players do that when they don’t perform as well as they would have liked and the team doesn’t have success in a game that is a pretty big game,” Christian said.
Ohio’s success will be bred from how well it can control the play of junior guard Alex Abreu, who was the Zips’ offensive catalyst in their first bout with the Bobcats.
Abreu scored 21 points on 70 percent shooting and had nine assists as opposed to only two turnovers in the game. Cooper’s 14 points, on the other hand, came on 30 percent from the floor.
Much of Abreu’s offensive output came from spotting up on the perimeter — he was 3-for-5 — and penetrating when guarded closely.
“You have to focus on him and show him a little more respect and just play my game,” Cooper said. “I’ll make sure he’s not in the lane as much as he was last game.”
Abreu’s ability to attack the basket is dwarfed quite literally by Akron (22-4, 12-0 MAC) senior center Zeke Marshall, who is joined by Demetrius Treadwell, a junior forward, in the paint.
Christian said it’s shortsighted to focus solely on Marshall’s play, as both he and Treadwell recorded double-doubles in the Bobcats’ trip to James A. Rhodes Arena.
“It’s more than Zeke Marshall — I wish it was just one guy,” he said. “If we could slow down just one guy it would be a lot easier.”
One bright spot in the Bobcats’ lone MAC loss was the play of junior forward T.J. Hall, who had a season-high 12 points off the bench.
He was promoted to a starting role in Ohio’s next game against Ball State and has since averaged almost nine points per game. He has made 21 field goals over that six-game span — only one fewer than in the 19 games preceding Ohio’s loss to Akron, during which he averaged 3.5 points.
The uptick in production isn’t a coincidence, he said.
“I’ve been working after practices, getting some shots up and focusing more on making every shot important,” he said.
That will need to be the case against Akron, which was ranked No. 24 in the USA Today Coaches poll Monday — its first national ranking in program history.
The last MAC team to garner that recognition in the regular season was Christian’s 2007-08 Kent State squad that clocked in at Nos. 23 and 24 in the Associated Press and Coaches polls, respectively, exactly five years ago Monday.
Only four games separate Akron from the third undefeated regular season in MAC history.
The Zips’ national recognition didn’t add any fuel to the Bobcats’ fire heading into Wednesday’s game.
“They’re playing well enough to be a top 25 team, and it doesn’t make it any bigger (or) smaller or anything else,” he said. “It’s a big game for first place on Feb. 27.”
jr992810@ohiou.edu
