Sports
Ohio Men’s Basketball: ‘Cats Look to Rebound Against Bowling Green
By: Taylor Jedrzejek
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Many have wondered how the Bobcats will respond to their historic 47-point loss at Buffalo.
Tuesday night may have been the worst loss for Ohio in 45 years, but there’s still five games left to be played before the MAC Tournament and the ‘Cats would rather look forward than look back.
Unfortunately for the Bobcats, the schedule does them no favors, as they go from facing the MAC East leading Buffalo Bulls to the MAC East leading Bowling Green Falcons.
“A little bit of a bruised ego. We didn’t play it well enough,” Ohio head coach Saul Phillips said when asked what the Bobcats took away from their 114-67 loss to Buffalo. “We looked at the tape, as painful as it may be. That’s us, that’s what we did and we’re accountable.”
The Bobcats have just two full days in between games, so refocusing their attention from Buffalo to Bowling Green (19-7, 11-2 MAC) is crucially important if Ohio (11-14, 3-10 MAC) wants to snap their six-game losing streak on Friday night.
Earlier in the season, the ‘Cats were able to hang with the Falcons for the first 27 minutes of the game. With 13:06 to play, Ben Vander Plas hit a shot to tie the game in the Stroh Center at 46. But from that point on, Bowling Green outscored Ohio 36-17 and went on to beat the Bobcats by 19.
The Bobcats will have to avoid that kind of second half collapse to pull off the upset over the MAC East leading Falcons.
“Even if they’ve changed from the last time we played them, the change is usually gradual,” Phillips said. “We’ve watched all their games. You’re just poring through their stuff looking for stuff they’ve added.”
For Ohio, it will be important to continue their solid work on the offensive side of the ball that they’ve demonstrated in their previous two games against Central Michigan and Buffalo. Despite losing by such a wide margin on Tuesday, the Bobcats’ shot a respectable 42.6 percent from the floor.
In their game against the Falcons back on January 8, Jason Carter scored 22 points, a number that has stuck as his season high in conference play since then. The Bobcats will need a similar performance from the redshirt sophomore on Friday night.
With just five games remaining in conference play, the Bobcats are just looking to improve their standing prior to the conference tournament that is just 18 days away.
“I don’t have a written goal in each capacity. The goal is to get this team as ready as we can to play in that tournament,” Phillips said. “We’re going to have to win the tournament to make it. We gotta hit that tournament as well as we can.”
Step one of getting the Bobcats going back in the right direction is winning on Friday night in the Convo. Tip-off against Bowling Green is set for 6:30 p.m. The game will also be televised on CBS Sports Network.