Ohio responded from a 28-point loss with a strong win over DePaul in the Diamond Head Classic.
After losing back-to-back games, including a 28-point loss to George Washington on Monday, Ohio had a players-only meeting in attempt to find its identity — and it worked.
In the second day of the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, Hawaii, the Bobcats put together their best game of the season on their way to a 99-78 win against DePaul.
“It got everybody on board. Before that meeting, I don’t think anybody knew what was their job,” redshirt senior guard Javarez “Bean” Willis said. “That meeting kinda told everybody what they need to do and it kinda brought everybody together and we played for each other.”
Willis finished with a career-high 31 points on 7 of 14 shooting from 3-point range. Willis, who scored 10 points in the first six minutes, said he knew he was going to have a good shooting day after having one of his best warm-ups of the season.
“We’ve been struggling for a win,” Willis said. “We don’t want to come down here and go 0-3. We lost the first one by 30 and you know our team, we’ve got the type of team where sometimes we need that. I’m not happy we lost by 30, but I think it woke us up.”
Although Willis’ scoring paced the Bobcats (4-5) from the get-go, coach Saul Phillips said he knew his team was going to have a good day when senior forward Maurice Ndour hustled down the court early on to deflect a DePaul pass in transition.
Phillips said it “might have been a meaningless play,” but when Ndour plays with a high intensity the rest of the Bobcats follow. Ohio wanted to focus on defending in transition after struggling Monday when it was outscored 46-22 in the paint.
The Bobcats outscored the Blue Devils 44-24 in the paint Tuesday.
Ndour finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds for a double-double, joining sophomore forward Antonio Campbell, who posted a double-double of his own with 10 points and 10 boards.
“We didn’t feel real good walking out of this building (on Monday) and it wasn’t real pleasant back watching film,” Phillips said. “Our guys responded like winners respond and that’s a good thing.”
Five Bobcats finished in double-digits, including redshirt junior Treg Setty, who came off the bench after starting Monday. Setty is playing his second season at Ohio after transferring from Southern Illinois and had his best game as a Bobcat with 17 points and nine rebounds.
DePaul (6-6) scored the opening basket, but from then on Ohio never trailed and entered halftime up 44-30 before scoring another 55 points in the second half. Monday, the Bobcats scored just 15 points after halftime.
Although Ohio played its best game of the season in less than 24 hours of preparation, Phillips doesn’t want to be too optimistic.
“I want to be real careful here because nothing is ever as good or bad as it appears,” Phillips said. “I don’t want to ride an emotional roller coaster, but it feels really good.”
Phillips said he’s looking forward to not setting his alarm Wednesday morning after playing back-to-back games with tip-off times at 9:30 a.m. in Hawaii. All teams have Wednesday off and Ohio will continue play in the consolation bracket against the winner of Tuesday night’s game between Nebraska (6-4) and Loyola Marymount (3-7) on Thursday.
“I hope they never let themselves get as low as we got after last night and I hope we don’t do the opposite,” Phillips said. “We’ve had flashes and (Tuesday) was an absolute flare gun flash. And you know what? Let’s build on it.”
@chadlindskog
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