With senior Jon Smith leaving the team on Monday, Ohio entered Wednesday’s CollegeInsider.com Tournament opening round game against Cleveland State shorthanded.
But solid contributions from bench players such as junior Stevie Taylor and sophomore Treg Setty, in addition to the best game of freshman Antonio Campbell’s career, the Bobcats kept their season alive with a 64-62 win at The Convo.
The fact Ohio keeps overcoming adversity has earned the admiration of coach Jim Christian.
“There’s a lot of times this team could’ve rolled over,” he said. “This is, without question, the most resilient group of guys I’ve ever coached because the injuries are ridiculous. And every time somebody goes down, somebody else steps up.”
Taylor, a guard, finished with 13 points and 22 minutes, which is the most action he’s seen since playing 27 minutes against Toledo on Feb. 12 before he fractured his leg.
“I’ve been feeling better the last couple days,” Taylor said. “I’ve been getting a lot of treatment, but I’m trying to play for the seniors. I’m not going to sit on the sidelines and just phone it in.”
With Smith gone, Ohio needed its big men to contribute more minutes, and Setty and Campbell showed they were more than capable of picking up the slack.
Setty put together his best offensive performance as a Bobcat with 13 points, and his confident play earned him praise from Vikings coach Gary Waters.
“I thought the bigger surprise was Setty,” Waters said. “If he doesn’t do what he does or did, we probably would have been up by a few points. … He came in and hit a couple threes and drove the ball to the basket.”
The increased workload was also put on Campbell and fellow freshman forward Wadly Mompremier, who tied his season-high with seven minutes.
Campbell found his way back into double digits with a game-high 21 points after scoring just six total points in two games during the Mid-American Conference Tournament in Cleveland last week. He shot 9 of 10 from the free throw line, including two makes with 4.7 seconds remaining to give Ohio the win.
“In the beginning of the season, there was a little nervousness out there at the free throw line,” Campbell said. “I found a way to overcome that, you know: practice free throw shooting and go to the line and knock ‘em down.”
Although Ohio senior Nick Kellogg didn’t have his best shooting night — making only two of his eight field goal attempts — he came through in the clutch on a step-back jumper from the corner with 46 seconds remaining to break a 60-all tie.
Ohio’s path to victory was less than picturesque early on, with the Bobcats’ usual problems holding them back in the opening 20 minutes.
Despite shooting six of nine from behind the arc and notching 12 first half assists, the Bobcats were all too generous to the Vikings, turning the ball over 11 times.
Those turnovers helped Cleveland State stick in the game, despite shooting 14 of 35 (40 percent) in the first stanza.
The Bobcats will move on to face IPFW (Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne) at home in the second round of the CIT on Saturday. The Mastodons topped MAC foe Akron — which eliminated Ohio from the MAC Tournament last week — by six points Wednesday in their CIT opener.
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