No lead is ever safe, coaches often say. Ohio’s squandering of a seemingly insurmountable 21-point lead against Toledo on Sunday illustrated just that, as the Bobcats’ flat second-half play put them in the loser’s circle for the third-straight game.
The Bobcats (8-10, 3-4 Mid-American Conference) dropped the game by two points, falling 64-62.
Ohio dominated the first half because of effective shooting in the paint and from mid-range, despite having another lackluster performance from beyond the arc.
That was especially true for freshman forward Hannah Boesinger, who helped set the tone for the offense early on by scoring all 10 of her points within the first nine minutes of the game. She didn’t attempt a single shot in the second half, despite her hot hand before the break.
Ohio rode the momentum Boesinger provided early to take a 36-19 lead into the half. The second half looked to be more of the same, as a pair of free throws from sophomore forward Lexie Baldwin stretched the Bobcats’ lead to 21 with 17:37 left.
From that point, Toledo went on a 21-4 run to cut Ohio’s advantage to four with just more than nine minutes to play, but a pair of three-pointers from sophomore guard Kiyanna Black upped Ohio’s lead to 10 soon thereafter.
But after a quick back-and-forth barrage, Toledo employed a hot hand from outside to go on a 15-3 run to claim its second lead of the game with two minutes remaining.
“We’ve never been up 17 before in a game — that’s probably a new area for us to deal with,” said Ohio coach Bob Boldon. “We did beat a couple bad teams early in the year, but we haven’t been up 17 against a good team. So maybe it was just some inexperience in not understanding how to handle a team that’s back is against the wall. I think a lot of it comes down to an inability to guard effectively.”
The Bobcats gave up 45 points to the Rockets in the second half, illustrating a trend that has been forming in the past three games. Ohio’s defense has allowed 37 or more points in the second half in its last three games.
“We didn’t focus on the defensive end in the second half like we did in the first half,” Black said. “I think we kind of got relaxed.”
Not only did the Bobcats have problems defensively, they were also inefficient on the offensive side, managing to score only 26 second-half points. Their offensive flow wasn’t the same as it was in the first half — almost as if shooters were content to drain the shot clock all the way down and hoist a contented jumper.
“I think offensively in the first half we were more relaxed and flowing,” Black said. “In the second half, we kind of froze up when they started coming back. We just weren’t ourselves for a minute.”
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