Poor does not begin to describe Ohio’s shooting performance against Toledo on Monday when it was knocked out of the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament.
The game was ugly from the start for the Bobcats, as they started 0 of 14 from beyond the arc and Toledo cruised to a 61-44 victory to end Ohio’s season.
The Rockets (15-15) will go on to face The Broncos in Cleveland on Wednesday.
Despite a lackluster shooting performance to begin the game, the Bobcats still hung around. That was until Toledo freshman guard Elena de Alfredo unloaded on Ohio, drilling a three-pointer straight from beyond the arc to stretch the Rockets’ lead to 26-11.
“They got us in rotation a couple of times where they broke us down,” coach Bob Boldon said. “We weren’t real clear on our communication as we were getting out of rotation and they got a couple of threes there. In a game where there’s not a lot of points scored those breakdowns they make just because they are a good basketball players are just too much to overcome.”
The Bobcats (9-21) struggled to figure out the The Rockets’ defense. The Toledo defense seemed to always be one step ahead of Ohio from its 2-3 zone or switching it up to man to man.
At times, the Rockets’ defense forced the Bobcats to settle for poor shots — especially from outside where they shot only 18 percent on an astounding 39 attempts.
“(Toledo) did a nice job of guarding and did a good job of changing their defense from one to another,” Boldon said. “They took us out of what we wanted to do a little bit and we have to take some responsibility for it as well. We missed some shots and we didn’t execute really well in the first half. At times I thought we did execute well and got those shots. We just weren’t able to do it consistently.”
One of the lone bright spots for Ohio came from sophomore forward Lexie Baldwin, who finished with a game-high 13 points to go along with 10 rebounds.
Baldwin was the only consistent offensive force for the Bobcats and wanted the ball in her hands as the shot clock ran down.
The Bobcats return its entire team for next season and they have plenty to improve.
“We just need to get better,” Boldon said. “You can pick almost anything because we’re not real good in any area ... We have limited time with the whole team, so there’s not a whole lot we can do until we come back next fall in that regard.”
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Fast Facts:
No. 6 Toledo 61
No. 11 Ohio 44
Sophomore forward Lexie Baldwin scored 13 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Ohio shot just 7 of 39 from beyond the arc.
