Ohio lost its opening game of the Diamond Head Classic on Monday against George Washington.
An early nine-point deficit was an indicator of the struggles that Ohio would face on Monday.
Ohio, scored the opening basket of the Diamond Head Classic on a rebound and putback layup by redshirt junior forward Treg Setty, but soon after the Bobcats saw themselves down 11-2 not even four minutes into the game.
Although they battled back in the opening half, the Bobcats wouldn’t come close to the George Washington after halftime and lost 77-49 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
George Washington (7-4) paced itself ahead Ohio for the beginning of the first half, until a three-pointer by Javarez “Bean” Willis, paired with five-straight points, would surge the Bobcats on an 8-0 run to put them within two points of the lead.
The Bobcats hovered around that two-point margin for about three minutes, but the Colonials didn’t let that last for long. They led by nine at halftime and more than doubled the Bobcats in the second half 34-15. Ohio made just 25 percent of its shots in the second half, including less than 10 percent of its 3-point attempts.
“I think at times when we have scoring droughts like that the execution and the looks that we get have been poor, I didn’t think that was as much the case tonight,” coach Saul Phillips said. “I thought we had some good looks in the second half that didn’t fall.”
Ohio (4-6) initially wanted to force George Washington to shoot from beyond the arc because the Colonials were averaging under five 3-pointers per game. That backfired when they hit three three-pointers in the first half and forced them to cover the perimeter, which in turn opened up the paint.
George Washington finished with 15 offensive rebounds.
“We did not pound the ball inside and they did,” Phillips said. “Fifteen offensive rebounds — that’s almost half their misses.”
Willis was able to hit shots from beyond the arc in the first half, though. The senior guard, wore No. 15 because of “jersey issues.” Early in the game, just like former Bobcats guard Nick Kellogg, who wore number 15, Willis hit his first three three-pointers he didn’t make another shot and finished with nine points on 3 of 11 shooting.
Fellow senior Maurice Ndour finished with eight points and five rebounds and freshman guard Ryan Taylor led the Bobcats with 15 points and four rebounds, but he was held scoreless in the second half.
Phillips said the biggest struggle for the Bobcats recently — especially Monday — have come from not knowing their own identity and who they prefer to turn to when they need to score.
“We haven’t found that answer yet and we’ve tried every way imaginable and we’ll just keep trying until we find it,” Phillips said. “Obviously your easy solution is just throwing it into (Ndour), but when you’re not shooting it very well, a lot of people collapse around him and it makes it very difficult.”
Although the Bobcats now fall to two games under .500, they will have the chance to redeem themselves in the consolation bracket tomorrow against DePaul (6-5) at 2:30 p.m.
“Trust me, there isn’t a part of me that’s cool with this, but I’d expect us to come out with a lot more fight than we have in a long, long time because we just got it rubbed in our face,” Phillips said. “I’ll tell you what, we’ve got a game tomorrow and we need to win. Period.”
@Alex_Busch91
ab109410@ohio.edu
