Sports
New Look Bobcats Beat Capital In Scrimmage
By: Clark Wicks, Mitchell Lyons
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For the first time in two years, Ohio Men’s Basketball fans went to the Convocation Center and didn’t see Antonio Campbell, Jaaron Simmons and Kenny Kaminski on the court.
This is a new team, with five new players and a totally different style of play.
Gone are the days of Simmons holding on to the ball and creating for a teammate. Now, it is a pass first, position less style of play, a la, the way the Golden State Warriors play.
On Saturday, fans got a treat of what the 2017-2018 Ohio Bobcats will look like. Ohio defeated Capital University 80-57.
Kevin Mickle, a Florida Gulf Coast Transfer, made his debut for the Bobcats and he made quite the impact. Mickle had a game-high 19 points and eight rebounds.
“Today, I wanted to focus on defense and let the offense come naturally,” Mickle said. “I can play offense, it is a natural part of my game. I wanted to show a little [bit] of that.”
Besides Mickle, Ohio had four players in double figures. Jordan Dartis, Jason Carter and Mike Laster all had 11 points. Freshman Teyvion Kirk had 10 points, six rebounds and three assists. Doug Taylor chipped in eight points and a game-high 10 rebounds.
“It’s going to be like that a lot,” head coach Saul Phillips said. “We had three guys with double digit shot attempts, we had five guys in double figures. This is the new normal for us. This is how we’re going to play.”
Phillips had nine players play 11 or more minutes. Part of that was to get a feel for rotations, but Phillips thinks his team is nine or 10 deep this year.
Ohio wants to move the ball this year and on Saturday, they did exactly that. The ball moved a lot more than the 13 assists would indicate.
“Besides a couple of lapses on offense, I thought that ball was moving, we were getting it inside and getting good looks all day,” Gavin Block said.
Ohio kicks off their season for real on Saturday, Nov. 11 against Alabama A&M. Tipoff is set for 2p.m.