Jordan Dartis cocked back his right hand and watched as the ball swished its way into the hoop.
It’s a sight that Ohio fans have been so accustomed to watch, and still have plenty of time left to enjoy. But more importantly, it was a sight that the whole building needed to see.
The redshirt senior’s third 3-pointer of the second half brought the Bobcats within six points of the Boilermakers. Clad in a green suit, coach Jeff Boals frantically pumped his arms up and down to further energize the crowd. Fans leapt from their seats as Ohio closed in on Purdue. The noise wasn’t silenced until it became clear that Dartis’ 3-pointer was the peak in the Bobcats’ game.
Unfortunately, that six-point difference was the closest Ohio would get in its attempt to upset the Boilermakers as the Bobcats lost 69-51 to Purdue on Tuesday in The Convo.
Dartis started the run on a near-corner 3-pointer where he made the shot and the ensuing free throw. Moments after, Nate Springs hit a 3-pointer, the Boilermakers turned it over. Ohio missed a shot underneath, but freshman Lunden McDay secured the rebound and wiggled his way through three defenders for the put back.
Another Dartis 3-pointer brought it to nine, and then his third.
Dartis’ 3-pointer was his tenth point in a 18-4 run midway through the second half that gave Ohio a sense of hope and belief. The Bobcats had slowly played their way back from a 20-point halftime deficit and had limited their turnovers from 12 in the first half to just four in the second.
Point guard Jason Preston and forward Ben Vander Plas were held to a combined five points in the first half, but found ways to get the offense generating whether it be through passing or merely taking the attention from Boilermakers’ defense.
In that span of three minutes and 49 seconds, the Bobcats felt all they needed was just one more basket or stop, and the game would’ve been theirs.
“When you get in moments like that in a game, where you’re just really starting to comeback and punch away at them, you’re just in the zone,” Dartis said. “At that point, we were down six and I was just thinking ‘Next stop, we’re doing it right now.’”
Dartis, who led Ohio with 16 points and went 3-of-9 from beyond-the-arc, has been in games like Tuesday’s throughout this season. The Bobcats have now played four high-major programs in the likes of Villanova, Baylor, Utah and now Purdue, all with a common theme. They get close enough to change the course of the game, and then something happens.
A turnover, a missed shot, a missed rebound. It’s the little things that Boals has noticed, but has seen improvement since the start of the season.
“We cut it to six and just couldn’t get that stop or hit that three that we needed to,” he said.
Ohio has its fair share of reasons. It’s only playing with seven healthy players because of injury. Of those seven, five of them are freshmen, and the inexperience showed. In moments where the Bobcats can close it out, they haven’t been able to. Yet, they’re showing signs they are getting closer.
“The growth has been there, but the tough thing is the consistency,” he said. “We’ve had so many different guys hurt at different times where you’re not practicing the same combinations.”
The Bobcats (7-4) haven’t had the start most people predicted them to have. They still carry the last place vote in the Mid-American Conference preseason poll with them, and despite the tough loss, it’s already looking to move on to their next opponent.
So no, they didn’t make that one stop or hit that next three. Instead, they watched as Purdue took over and iced the game. Those missed opportunities, however, are building up to something that not even Ohio knows what. With just two games before MAC play begins, the Bobcats aren’t in bad shape for what it’s working with.
