When Gabrielle Bird knocked down the game-winning shot with seven seconds left in the game, she negated the great performances of two players in Ohio’s 73-71 loss to Central Michigan on Wednesday night in The Convo.
Those players were Cece Hooks of Ohio and Micaela Kelly of Central Michigan, who are two of the best guards in the Mid-American Conference. These two were widely the reason Bird was in the position she was to give the Chippewas the win.
Hooks scored 27 points with nine rebounds in her highest scoring game of the season. Kelly, who entered as the MAC’s leading scorer with 24.3 points per game, was the game’s second-leading scorer with 21 points of her own with five rebounds and five assists. Kelly wasn’t subbed out the entire game. Hooks only missed four minutes.
The duel between the point guards was at its height in the fourth quarter. When Hooks scored a layup to narrow Central Michigan’s lead to three, Kelly made a layup of her own to put it back to five. Later, Hooks made another layup to tie the game, and Kelly was the one to get the lead back with just over a minute to play.
For Hooks, it wasn’t about those layups that she made. She was more focused on the ones she missed.
“The layups that I did miss could’ve been the game-winning shot,” Hooks said. “So, it’s kind of fighting in my head a little bit.”
Hooks did miss 15 shots, but without her nine fourth quarter points, Ohio (8-5, 1-1 MAC) wouldn’t have been able to stay in the game through the fourth quarter until the end.
With 10 seconds left to play and Central Michigan inbounding the ball, it was only natural to think that Kelly would get the ball to try to take the lead. That attracted Ohio’s attention and gave Bird just enough space to make a difficult shot.
“I think Kelly got towards the baseline, took a lot of attention,” Ohio coach Bob Boldon said. “It looked like we got a hand up, and she made a tough shot. They’ve got a lot of good players, and good players make good shots.”
It was clear from Wednesday’s game that both teams had good players but perhaps none better than Hooks and Kelly. It was the two of them that led their teams to the point when the game had to be decided by two points. And while Kelly may have gotten the last laugh for now, it isn’t over between the two guards and their teams.
Ohio will travel to Central Michigan on Feb. 1 for a grudge match, and it seems as if Hooks already has that game circled on her calendar.
“We’ll see them again,” she said.
