Saul Phillips had seen enough. He furiously called timeout and yelled as he stormed back to his team, which had started the half as slow as could be.
Ohio trailed Central Michigan by just six entering the second half, but when Phillips called time, the Bobcats trailed by 15. It got worse, as the lead eventually grew to 21. Ohio never recovered.
Despite a competitive first half, the Bobcats' horrific second half doomed them in a 75-50 loss Tuesday night in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, to open up Mid-American Conference play.
“We didn’t score in the first nine possessions," Phillips said. "Go back to the first possession, (Teyvion Kirk) puts the ball right in front of the rim in transition and we get a kick out, miss an open 3 in the corner. It just snowballed from there.”
Ohio started the second half 0-of-7 from the field; on the other end, Central Michigan turned that into a 6-of-11 start and a 15-0 run to bury whatever chance Ohio had. When the time came for a run, the offense didn't come.
The Bobcats put up their lowest point total of the season, coming in 11 points below their previous season low of 61, which came in the Nov. 11 season-opener against Alabama A&M. Aside from Mike Laster, who scored a team-high 19 points, nothing went right for the Bobcats.
It was the lowest amount of points for Ohio since a 49-point output last season in a four-point loss to Eastern Michigan.
“You give up 75 points to a Central team that can score it a little bit, that was just over one point per possession," Phillips said. "We actually did a decent job on the defensive end; we just couldn’t figure it out offensively. You couple that with the last half of the Northwestern Ohio game, that’s a big chunk of time we haven’t played offensive very well. That’s a problem.”
The Bobcats turned the ball over 17 times, too, as the Chippewas finished the second half with a 38-19 advantage. Ohio finished 20-of-56 from the field (35.7 percent) and went just seven-of-16 from the free throw line.
Kevin Mickle and Doug Taylor combined for just seven points on the night, while Jordan Dartis scored four. Kirk added 13, but that wasn't nearly enough.
“I think some of it was schematically how we attacked it," Phillips said. "Some of it was we just missed shots we need to make.”
The Bobcats shot just 27 percent from the field in the second half, not making a 3-pointer along the way. Where the first half was plagued by turnovers, the second half was hampered by poor shooting.
It was the first loss of conference play for Ohio, which falls to 7-6 overall. Despite the disheartening loss, Phillips remained hopeful postgame and said there was a lot of season left to play.
There's 17 games — all of them conference games — left to play, to be exact.
“I don’t believe in burning the tape; I don’t believe in walking away from a bad performance and not addressing it," Phillips said. "We’ve got to learn from it. It’s going to sting to learn from it, it’s going to hurt to learn from it; we’re going to grow to learn from it, and we’re going to come back.”
