For Ohio, it’s been a next man up mentality all season.
On Wednesday, it was Antonio Campbell, and on Saturday, Javarez “Bean” Willis stepped up and delivered.
The junior guard from Homer, La. put the team on his back, scoring a game-high 21 points and catching fire in the waning moments of Ohio’s 56-54 win against Wright State in the second round of the CollegeInsider.com Tournament.
With the Bobcats trailing 50-48 and 59.7 seconds remaining, Willis pulled up to the right wing and hoisted up a three without hesitation. The shot hit nothing but net and sent The Convo into a frenzy.
“(The Wright State defender) cut me off kind of strong and he slipped a bit,” Willis said. “I saw a little light, so I just shot it. I had all the confidence. I felt like I would make it.”
On the next possession, after a Travis Wilkins steal, Willis converted on a transition layup to give the Bobcats a three point lead with 42 seconds remaining.
Willis was feeling it with his shooting stroke, hitting five of his six attempts from deep and seven of his 11 overall field goal attempts.
He credited seniors Nick Kellogg and Travis Wilkins for finding him when their shots just weren’t falling, after the senior duo made combined to make just 3 of 11 from the field,
“When I hit a couple shots, they come back to me,” Willis said. “They tell me, ‘Hey, keep shooting it, keep shooting it.’ So, you know, that’s what really builds my confidence to even take those shots. … It just shows me that they believe I’ll make the shot.”
The second half painted a much prettier picture of what was an ugly first half from an offensive standpoint.
Ohio shot 54.5 percent in the second half, after hitting just a third of its shots in the first stanza.
Both teams struggled to put the ball in the basket in the opening half, with Wright State enduring a 6:15 stretch without a point, Ohio scoring a season-low 20 first half points and both teams combining to shoot 27.7 percent (15-54) from the field.
“I thought both teams played unbelievably hard on the defensive end of the floor,” Christian said. “It was two good defensive teams today playing basketball.”
That point total was Ohio’s lowest in the first half since putting up 22 points in 58-56 win against Eastern Michigan on January 25.
The Bobcats seemed to be sleepwalking in the early going, turning the ball over on four out of its first seven possessions, falling behind the Raiders 7-2 at the 15:45 mark of the first half.
But Ohio cleaned up its play for the remainder of the first stanza, recording only one turnover for the remainder of the half.
Ohio’s victory puts this current squad in rarified air, becoming only the third team in school history to record at least 25 wins.
Christian said it was even more impressive with the current health of the squad and the adversity his team has faced through 36 games.
“These (players) should be proud of that, especially with all they had to endure to get here,” he said.
FAST FACTS
Ohio 56 (25-11)
Wright State 54 (21-15)
- Javarez “Bean” Willis scored a game-high 21 points
- Ohio only recorded two offensive rebounds
- The Bobcats held Wright State to a shooting percentage of 32.2
ch203310@ohiou.edu
@c_hoppens
