The 19-8 third quarter tally wasn’t much of a run, but it didn’t take an impressive performance Saturday from the Bobcats to defeat Eastern Michigan 68-51 at The Convo.
During the matchup of struggling offenses, the 19 points the Bobcats scored were the most scored by either team in a quarter while the game was competitive.
Luckily, Ohio had Quiera Lampkins to counteract an otherwise awful offensive performance.
Lampkins finished with 22 points on 7-of-14 shooting, easily driving through the Eastern Michigan defense to score at the rim all afternoon. Meanwhile, her teammates finished with a combined 46 points on 17-of-49 shooting.
Defensively, Ohio continued to repair the ailments that led to its first two-loss week in over a year. In two games since losing to Kent State, the Bobcats have held opponents to 53 points per game on 37-124 (29.8 percent) shooting.
But considering Eastern Michigan’s tenth place conference ranking in scoring and its last place ranking in 3-point shooting, coach Bob Boldon probably isn’t ready to declare his defense “back” yet.
The Bobcats knew going into the game that forcing an ill-shooting team to shoot more threes was a good strategy, and mixed in some zone defense for the first time since Boldon arrived at Ohio in 2013. The result: a 3-of-15 3-point performance from Eastern Michigan.
Saturday’s win improved the Bobcats to 14-4 on the season and 5-2 in conference play. It was important for them to get the defense back on track with four of their next five games coming against opponents with equal or better conference records.
But, as Boldon worried about in practice last week, the intense focus on defense may have had a negative impact on his team’s offense. The Bobcats have shot 48-of-117 in the two-game defense reclamation effort, but Boldon said in practice the offense will be useless if they can’t improve at the other end.
Ohio will host Western Michigan, which is 4-2 in conference play, on Wednesday. The Bobcats have shown improvement on defense, but they still need the offense to rebound in order to reach their championship goals.
