With 11.6 seconds remaining in overtime, the stage was set.
Coach Saul Phillips called timeout trailing by three after Marshall guard Jon Elmore sunk both of his free throws.
Teyvion Kirk dribbled the length of the floor. He used a screen from Kevin Mickle to get to the right wing and looked to hand the ball off to Jordan Dartis, but Dartis was face guarded well by Elmore.
He searched for an open shooter but found none. He settled on Gavin Block at the top of the key, whose flailing, leaning, contested 3-pointer bricked off the left side of the rim, rendering the rest of Ohio’s resilient efforts moot in its 99-96 loss to Marshall on Saturday.
Ohio needed a 3-pointer on the last play, and everyone inside the Cam Henderson Center knew it. That was the problem.
“Everybody on the other team’s going to hug so you don’t get a 3,” Dartis said. “Especially with that time and situation — late in game — it’s gonna be hard to search for that 3.”
For a while, it looked like the Bobcats were going to beat the odds again. The circumstances were reminiscent of their quadruple overtime win over Indiana State.
Down nine at halftime and without Jason Carter, the Bobcats opened the second half on a 24-7 run thanks in large part to four Dartis 3-pointers, part of his career-high 27 points. Carter re-aggravated his lower leg injury.
After trading baskets with Marshall for the final 15 minutes of regulation, Kirk missed a wide open left-handed layup with under two seconds left. That would’ve been the end had Block not salvaged the game with a put back, his second field goal of the game.
After Kirk opened the overtime scoring with two free throws at the 3:59 mark, the Bobcats failed to score again for 3:42.
They missed four shots on two late overtime possessions while trailing by two points, squandering the extra efforts by James Gollon and Kevin Mickle to retain possession with offensive rebounds.
They trailed by four points after Ajdin Penava, a 74 percent career free throw shooter, missed one of two free throws, setting up the third 3-pointer of Kirk’s college career with 17 seconds remaining.
Despite the cold shooting in the first half and the arctic shooting in overtime, Kirk’s missed layup in regulation, Carter sitting out the second half and Mike Laster exiting the game twice, the Bobcats still had a chance to tie the game after the Elmore free throws.
They overcame every disadvantage except Marshall’s knowledge of the scoreboard. And that left a different feeling in Phillips’ gut from the one he felt after Ohio’s first emotional whirlwind of a game against Indiana State on Nov. 19.
“I’ll have a hard time sleeping,” Phillips said. “The guys will have a hard time sleeping. Certainly a different feeling.”
If and when the Bobcats get to sleep, they will awake without knowing if their presumed best player or their leading scorer will be able to play Tuesday night against Prairie View.
The Bobcats are no strangers to short-handedness, but they thought they’d seen the last of it. They thought they were past the injury problems.
Ohio is .500 through 10 games. With the injuries it has sustained, that might be a positive. But it still has more questions than answers surrounding the roster, and Mid-American Conference play begins Jan. 2.
They’ll move forward the only way they know how.
“Just keep pushing,” Dartis said. “You can only control what you can control. We haven’t been healthy all year. I think we can explode in conference play.”
