As Mid-American Conference regular season basketball wraps up, the Bobcats’ 2023-24 regular season is becoming increasingly magical. After an uninspiring 1-3 start, Ohio has turned its season around, winning 10 of its last 12 MAC games to improve its conference record to 12-5.
From an outsider’s perspective, Jeff Boals’ case for MAC coach of the year may not be an obvious one, as Ohio will likely end up where it was picked to finish before the season in third. However, when you consider where Ohio was after the first seven games of Conference play, it becomes much easier to see why Boals deserves recognition.
After the injury of preseason MAC second-team player AJ Brown, Ohio was struggling to find its identity. Not only did the Bobcats win just one of four games to start MAC play, but they also went just 2-4 prior in December.
Since then, however, Ohio has gone to a more traditionally sized starting lineup with Aidan Hadaway starting at the power forward position and Miles Brown providing the team with defense and experience in the starting lineup. As talented as Hadaway is, Ohio’s coaching staff deserves credit for the major development made by Hadaway after his addition to the starting lineup.
Hadaway isn’t the only member of Ohio’s frontcourt to make significant improvements, which prior to the season may have been considered a weakness. AJ Clayton has become not just a scoring option but a very underrated interior defender. Clayton’s perimeter capabilities offensively allow Ohio to play with great spacing and speed, and his defensive improvements mean Ohio is not as susceptible as other undersized teams to being outplayed by bigger, more physical teams on the defensive end.
While Jaylin Hunter has been as solid as many would expect a preseason first-team All-MAC player to be, Ohio’s resurgence after the poor start is due to the continued development of players like Clayton and Hadaway by the Ohio coaching staff.
Often, Coach of the Year honors go to the coach who has led their team to the greatest level of success above expectation or the coach whose team finishes in first place. As of today, Boals qualifies in neither of those two categories. However, Ohio is just one game out of first place behind Akron and Toledo. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Akron and Toledo lose their final games and Ohio wins to share the MAC regular season title.
Even if that doesn’t happen, why should a one-game difference between the first-place team and third-place team disqualify Boals from being considered for MAC coach of the year?
Ohio likely will not finish the regular season above preseason expectation, but what would Ohio’s preseason expectation have been if voters knew the team would be without AJ Brown for the entirety of MAC play.
Bringing Ohio back from not just a poor start to MAC play but a 2-7 stretch in December and January without a key contributor to a 12-5 team at the end of the regular season, Boals is as deserving as any coach for MAC Coach of the year.
bg238320@ohio.edu
