Ohio had the perfect hand. Then in an instant, the deck was stacked against it.
When the Bobcats beat Central Michigan on Feb.2, they had no idea they’d go three weeks before seeing another opponent. And while some teams could appreciate and use a break, Ohio’s COVID-19-forced shutdown couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Ohio was balling. Coach Jeff Boals couldn’t have been happier with his team’s four-game winning streak. The offense was clicking, the defense was locked in and Ohio had finally emerged from its rebounding slump.
But when the Mid-American Conference announced the Bobcats were halting all basketball operations on Feb.6, Boals had no idea what shape his team would be in when they came back.
“I think the big thing is trying to figure out what type of shape they’re in,” Boals said on Monday. “When you take a 14-plus day pause, just the timing of everything and the conditioning, you know. There could be rust.”
To add to Boals’ worries was Ohio’s schedule coming off its layoff. Ohio was slated to play its most grueling three game stretch since the opening of the season. Starting off with Akron, who destroyed a healthy Ohio team back in December, then playing Eastern Michigan two days later and finally ending the week against a Buffalo team on a hot streak.
To make matters even worse, Boals doesn’t have his entire team. Moments before the Akron game, Jason Preston and Dwight Wilson, Ohio’s two leading scorers, were still in street clothes.
At this point, making it back on the court was a win for Ohio. But actually getting a win over Akron was a completely different story.
Or was it?
Ohio demolished Akron on Tuesday 90-73. Five different Bobcats were in double digits and a team that was supposed to be riddled with rust stunned a MAC powerhouse that’s had their number for the past few seasons.
So what does this mean? It means Ohio’s legit.
After garnering national attention in back-to-back games against Illinois and Cleveland State, Ohio started to settle into mediocrity. The Bobcats lost three straight following an uninspiring win over Division II Purdue Northwest.
Ultimately, Ohio started to fade from the spotlight. The Bobcats went from MAC title contenders to questioning if they’d make it back to Cleveland for the conference tournament.
But now the Bobcats are back.
Beating a team of Akron’s caliber without its two best players shows that Ohio (12-6, 8-4 MAC) is a team to take seriously when the tournament starts on March 11.
The Bobcats don’t have a shot at winning the regular-season title, but if a lineup consisting of role players like Ben Vander Plas, Lunden McDay and Ben Roderick can beat one of the best squads in the conference, who knows how good Ohio will be when Preston and Wilson rejoin the team.
“Everybody coming back expects us to maybe not play as well, but we had a different mindset,“ Vander Plas said. “We wanted to come in and just perform. We were all excited to be back out here.”
Excitement is a valuable asset for a team. While teams around the nation battle the late-season blues, Ohio feels like its season has just restarted.
