Ohio's win against Ball State means something bigger: a chance at the Mid-American Conference Championship.
College basketball season can be odd.
Every team plays roughly 30 games and (usually) there's little novelty every week. It's hard to pinpoint exactly which game, or set of games, is most important in a team's season.
For Ohio, its arguably most important game this season came Tuesday at Ball State, amidst its most important set of games.
Junior forward Antonio Campbell — who's making an intriguing case for Mid-American Conference Player of Year this season — notched his 11th double-double during the win, and redshirt junior Kenny Kaminski added 20 points, including 5-of-11 from 3-pointers.
"That's what No. 13 does," Campbell said of Kaminski. "He made some big shots down the stretch, a couple big threes. He played good defensively. You couldn't have asked for much more out of Kenny."
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On the outside looking in, Tuesday was a 72-69 win on a final-second defensive stand. A momentum builder.
Ohio has now won three road games. Last year it won one.
Looking further, however, Ohio has a real chance at pushing for a Mid-American Conference Championship. No, that isn't a misprint.
Sure, the Bobcats are 15-8 and 6-5 within conference play, which is only good enough for fourth place in the MAC East, but they have been playing their best during their toughest stretch of the season.
Ohio has won four of its past five games, all against opponents with winning records. Ohio's previous five opponents (Toledo, Kent State, Akron, Northern Illinois and Ball State) have a combined record of 82-38 this season, as the Bobcats have outscored its opponents by a three-point margin.
For context, during last year's seven-game losing streak to close out the season, Ohio was outscored, on average, by a 15-point margin.
"The growth had been incremental and seen on tape by me, and now, I think the world is seeing it," coach Saul Phillips said.
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Senior forward Treg Setty said previously that Ohio's transgression to MAC Championship contender "will take time."
Setty, who's averaging 10 points on 47 percent shooting from the field, added that the Bobcats' 'final product' will come eventually, but it may not be until by the end of the season. Or, cynically, it may never come.
But Setty is incorrect. Ohio's final product is finally coming to form during its most strenuous portion of the season, and it still has seven games to play.
Tuesday proved this.
The Bobcats' win over the Cardinals showed almost every facet Phillips wants in his program.
A strong guard (Jaaron Simmons) controlling the pace, a forward taking control of the paint (Campbell) with a wing player frightening the opposition from the outside (Kaminski). Ohio's defense, on the other hand, limited Ball State from utilizing its 3-point arsenal. The Cardinals came in as the second-best 3-point shooting team in the MAC.
But after Tuesday's escape, it was the Bobcats boasting that's been odd to fans inside The Convo in the past two seasons.
A team worthy of a conference title run.
@Lukeoroark
Lr514812@ohio.edu
