The Bobcats finished non-conference play with a victory Friday night.
They defeated Northwestern Ohio 65-58 at The Convo. But the tone of coach Saul Phillips’ postgame press conference did not reflect a win.
“We need to play much better than that,” Phillips said. “There’s a jillion reasons why it may have occurred. All of them are excuses. All I'm interested in is not seeing us play that way again.”
Phillips watched his team post its second lowest scoring output of the season against a Division II team. And with two minutes remaining, the Bobcats only led by four. They hadn’t scored in nearly six minutes.
15 seconds later, Gavin Block found Mike Laster in the left corner for a 3-pointer the Bobcats never thought they would need. Beside some free throws, Laster’s 3-pointer represented the only points Ohio scored in the final 7:33.
Some rust was to be expected for Laster and the Bobcats after an eight-day layover. The Bobcats hadn’t played since Dec. 20. They didn't practice during four of those days.
There was Christmas and everything that came with it. A 36-30 halftime score was odd, but not alarming.
With 7:33 remaining, Kevin Mickle stole the ball at half court and threw down a vicious one-handed dunk to extend the Bobcat lead to 16. The mega-run Ohio expected from the jump ball appeared to be on.
But it never came. Northwestern Ohio nibbled at the Bobcat lead for the next six minutes without any offensive resistance until the late 3-pointer.
Laster and the Bobcats expected to win. They expected to win easily. It was supposed to get ugly for Northwestern Ohio.
Well, Friday’s win was all kinds of ugly. Just not for the team most expected.
“You’d hope so,” Phillips said of his expectations for a blowout. “We’re a Division I basketball team. That’s just the fact of the matter.”
Phillips’ expectations weren’t met. Neither were anybody else’s.
But as Teyvion Kirk explained, that’s sometimes the nature of these mismatches.
“Of course you wanna put it on them,” Kirk said. “Everyone expects you to win by 20, win by 30. But in reality, sometimes it’s gonna be a close game.”
Obviously, the Bobcats aren’t satisfied with a seven-point victory over a team that had Friday’s game scheduled as an exhibition to avoid an ugly result. But they still finished non-conference play 7-5 despite a rash of injuries to important players.
They finished 2017 with a dud. But one awkward performance doesn't make for an unsuccessful first half of the season.
“We get all stormy about this,” Phillips said. “But given the fact that we’ve had a roster in complete tumult, I think we’re sitting in a pretty decent spot.”
