For the time being, Ohio needs to take a page out of sophomore guard Erin Bailes’ book.
Not because she scores the most points or dominates the defensive glass, but because she encompasses what the Bobcats have to do to overcome their string of three straight losses: take high-percentage shots.
In Ohio’s 67-47 loss to Miami Sunday, Bailes played a team- and career-high 33 minutes and racked up 11 points on 50 percent shooting from the floor.
“Erin has been in, I’d say, about a 10-game slump here before,” Ohio coach Semeka Randall said. “(She was) overthinking it, trying to do things that are not within her means, and it’s good to see her back.”
Bailes’ last time hitting the 50 percent mark was in a 13-point performance against Cleveland State Dec. 5. Since then, she had shot only 13.6 percent from the field.
For the Bobcats (8-10, 1-3 Mid-American Conference), it’s not only good to see her back in full swing, but it’s essential for the team’s success with injuries to Kat Yelle, Porsha Harris and Ashley Fowler. Their absences have left the Bobcats scrambling for a spark.
Bailes is beginning to see the dividends of her hard work by providing energy in the loss to the RedHawks.
“You just have to go to the gym with a clear mind,” she said. “I’m very hard on myself — I had to stop, I had to let things go. If I missed a shot, I just had to get the next one and it just got my rhythm back into it.”
There’s no doubt that the loss to rival Miami hurt. But the rest of the Bobcats can learn from how Bailes pushed through her slump to press on to Thursday’s game against Akron.
“This one was a tough game, and we have to let it go and focus on what we have next,” Bailes said. “It’s tough to do that sometimes, but at the end of the day we have to get better, and to do that, we have to focus on what we have to do.”
The Bobcats will need to be tough in the paint to beat the Zips. Ohio allowed its opponent to snag 13 offensive rebounds in the first half Sunday — two more than it was able to pull down in the full 40 minutes of play.
“One thing I pride our team on is we usually compete from start to finish and we did not do that (Sunday),” Randall said.
The lack of interior presence led to 22 second-chance points for the RedHawks.
This week’s trip to Akron will mark Ohio’s last MAC East contest until mid-February. In the meantime, the Bobcats will be on the road, testing the waters of the MAC West.
Randall said she hopes Fowler and Harris see action early in the Bobcats’ cross-divisional matchups.
“They’re doing pretty good, in my opinion,” Randall said. “Hopefully in the next week or so, or two, we might see them coming back. But I want to be smart when we’re doing this too, as well.”
jr992810@ohiou.edu
