It’s been an up-and-down but overall positive season for Ohio coach Jeff Boals and his Bobcats mid-way through the 2024-25 season. The team, currently on a five-game winning streak, sits tied for first in the Mid-American Conference after a lackluster start on a prolonged road trip.
The MAC is taking shape, with about half of the season as a sample. Ohio may also have a MAC Player of the Year case on its roster and a couple of freshmen primed to make positive postseason contributions alongside a batch of experienced veteran talent.
Here are three takeaways from mid-way through the 2024-25 season.
The MAC is starting to take shape
Before the 2024-25 season kicked off, Ohio was near-unanimously projected to finish atop the MAC. The team received 11 of a possible 12 first-place votes on the MAC Preseason Coaches’ Poll after returning a majority of its key contributors from the previous season.
However, after a sluggish start to the season where Ohio played just one of its first seven games at home, the team started 2-5. There were no formal power rankings kept from the start of the season until now, but the informal ones did not favor the Bobcats. Since then, Ohio has gone 7-1, including 6-0 within the walls of The Convo and taken three games into conference play. The MAC is starting to form into three tiers.
The first tier consists of Kent State and Akron. Although Kent State is tied for fifth in the conference standings with a 2-1 conference record, its record doesn’t tell the full story. The Golden Flashes have an elite defense, holding their opponents to the 15th-least points per game in the nation. The reigning MAC Champion Zips aren’t far behind either, ranking in the top 150 on both ends of the ball.
In the second tier are fated rivals Ohio and Miami. The Bobcats have been blitzing opponents since coming back from their road trip largely due to contributions from senior AJ Clayton, who’s averaging 19.8 points per game and 2.2 blocks in the team’s winning streak. Miami and star sophomore Kam Craft are on a similar tear, coming out winners of their last five and shooting the seventh-best percentage nationally from 3-point range on the season.
The third tier is everybody else. Aside from the clear top four that has taken shape, not one MAC team has a positive net rating, and while teams like Toledo, which sits 3-0 in conference play, may hold weight in the tournament, it’s hard to say they knock on the same door as the teams in the top four.
Ohio has a MAC Player of the Year candidate
As previously mentioned, Clayton has been on a tear for the Bobcats lately. After finishing on the third team last year, the forward was a projected All-MAC First Teamer this season.
Clayton currently leads the conference in points and blocks, both on a total and per-game rate, while ranking second in 3-pointers made and sixth in rebounding. Most recently, Clayton’s 31-point, nine-3-pointer explosion against Northern Illinois marked exactly why he’s deserving of the conference’s top honor, Player of the Year.
The projected winner, Central Michigan’s Anthony Pritchard, is certainly still a candidate; he ranks 20th in points per game, third in assists per game and second in steals per game. Other candidates include Kent State’s Voncameron Davis, Miami’s Craft and Ball State’s Jermahri Hill, but Clayton’s all-around impact and production is arguably unmatched in comparison.
Another batch of impactful freshman
Over the last few years of the Jeff Boals era, Ohio has brought in a handful of great freshman classes. Most notably, the current junior cast which lines Ohio’s rotation — Aidan Hadaway, AJ Brown, Elmore James and Ajay Sheldon — is one of the best recruiting classes in program history.
Elijah Elliott and Ayden Evans made big contributions on limited minutes in their freshman campaigns so far. Elliott, a flipped commitment from Florida State, has found a semi-consistent spot in the rotation with the injury to projected All-MAC second-teamer Shereef Mitchell. Evans, on the other hand, has provided size and athleticism in the middle of the floor, as the only “traditional” big man on Ohio’s roster.
The group hasn’t penetrated the team’s core rotation just yet, but are showing positive signs in almost every game.
