The Bobcats are seeking just their second road victory of the season Wednesday against Western Michigan.
Although he’s new to Ohio and the Mid-American Conference, Saul Phillips is familiar with playing Western Michigan.
During his final three seasons coaching at North Dakota State, Phillips’ Bison met the Broncos each year. And Phillips’ team was victorious in two of those meetings, with the lone loss coming in overtime during a College Basketball Invitational tournament game.
North Dakota State and Western Michigan won their respective conferences last season and qualified for the NCAA Tournament. The two didn’t meet this season, but Phillips called the Broncos (15-10, 6-6 MAC) a system team, starting with their guard David Brown.
Brown scored 27 points last season against the Bison and is averaging 17.6 points per game in MAC play this season. That’s fourth-best in the MAC over 10 games.
“He’s kind of like an old conference foe for me at this point,” Phillips said. “They do a great job of putting their players in a position where they can succeed.”
Brown isn’t Western Michigan’s only threat, though. Connar Tava, a 6-foot-6 forward, is averaging almost 14 points this season and is unique for a MAC forward. He is able to advance the ball up the court, different from most teams that run their offense through just guards.
“He’s developed into a guy that really shows up on the scouting report and a guy that you do a lot of time preparing for,” Phillips said. “That’s a pretty big compliment, I think.”
Handling Brown and Tava will be a challenge for Ohio (9-14, 4-8 MAC), which has only won one road game this season.
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Phillips has credited those losses to the way the Bobcats play offense, which isn’t conducive to winning on the road because if they start slow and miss shots, they tend to just keep shooting. When the Bobcats make shots at any point during home games, the crowd can rally them back into contention.
“We’ve tried to get more and more deliberate with very mixed results,” Phillips said. “I’m not saying don’t push when it’s there, but if we don’t have something maybe a couple extra passes before we go ahead and hoist her up.”
Redshirt freshman Khari Harley made his first career start Saturday at Miami and helped pace the Bobcats’ offense to a halftime lead with seven first-half points. He then struggled with turnovers in the second half, but Phillips was indecisive Monday at practice about whether Harley would start again Wednesday.
Because of Ohio’s struggles throughout the season — especially on the road — he wants all players to remain fresh on the bench, but knows Harley needs minutes moving forward to improve his comfort level.
“We haven’t been too well on the road,” Harley said. “We do got everything to prove, so we just need to come in hungry and try to get this win.”
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