The early season for Ohio (4-6) has held a consistent trend: wins at home and losses on the road. That’s been the same story for Marshall (6-5), and the two team’s matchup ended with a 79-70 Sunday win for the Thundering Herd in West Virginia.
With the loss, Ohio, which is 3-0 at home, drops to 1-6 when away from The Convo. Similarly, Marshall improves to 6-1 at home, with its remaining four losses all coming on the road.
In terms of scoring, redshirt sophomore AJ Brown led Ohio, who scored a season-high 22 points on 8-of-17 shooting. However, the offense was managed by junior Jackson Paveletzke, who had his third career double-double, all coming in the last six games with a career-high 12 assists.
The Thundering Herd was led by former Mid-American Conference standout for Akron, graduate student Mikal Dawson. Dawson took 27 points, making six-of-nine 3-pointers, just a point shy of his career-high.
Aside from Dawson’s shooting barrage, Marshall shot just two-of-ten from 3-point range. The offense was extremely efficient, with the Thundering Herd going 21-of-36 from inside the arc.
The Thundering Herd never took a massive lead over the Bobcats, but by looking to get into the chest of a smaller opponent, the team was able to maintain the lead throughout the game. Ohio wouldn’t take its first lead of the game until there was just under 6 minutes left in the first half after Brown hit consecutive 3-pointers on two of three scoring possessions.
Senior AJ Clayton also had an efficient night for the Bobcats, outsourcing everyone but Brown and Dawson with 16 points on just eight field goal attempts. Despite his efforts, Ohio’s offense struggled to find consistency from the rest of its roster.
Junior guards Elmore James and Ajay Sheldon, who have provided a nice offensive punch for the Bobcats in the absence of graduate student Shereef Mitchell, combined to shoot just 2-of-14 from the field, with junior Aidan Hadaway going 2-of-7 in 35 minutes played.
These struggles from Ohio’s supporting cast kept the team fighting from behind for the majority of the game despite narrowly winning the turnover battle and shooting a perfect 11-of-11 from the free-throw line.
Aside from the home-away trend which has been growing for the Bobcats, there is another one. When the offense fails to score 80 or more points in regulation, the team has gone 0-6. In wins, Ohio averages 84.8 points per game, just 1 point less than Akron’s conference-leading 85.8 points per game.
In losses, Ohio averages 73.2 points per game, over 11 points less than the team’s winning average. With all of the team’s losses coming on the road, it appears The Convo’s crowd has been a paramount factor in the team’s offensive success in wins.
Due to offensive inefficiencies and the inability to stop a scorching Marshall team inside the 3-point line, Ohio was unable to scrape away the 8-point deficit it ended the first half with. Marshall, on the other hand, came out of the half on fire, going on a 7-0 run to take the largest lead of the game at 15 points.
Ohio would marginally outscore its opponent the rest of the way, but it wouldn’t be enough. Ohio will finish out December at home, with two more games in 2024. The first against Austin Peay on Wednesday, and the second against Muskingum Dec. 30th.
