Sports
Ohio Bobcats pull off comeback victory at Bowling Green, get third road win of 24-25
By: Grant Kiefer
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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (WOUB) — Jan. 28, 2017–that was the last time the Ohio Bobcats (12-11, 6-4 MAC) won at Bowling Green (9-14, 3-7 MAC). It doesn’t help that Ohio has struggled on the road this season, with only three wins away from Athens coming into Tuesday night’s game. That highly-coveted fourth win would come against Bowling Green, as the Bobcats rallied late to pull out an 86-81 victory.
A 10-2 run by Bowling Green in the first two-and-a-half minutes of game action forced head coach Jeff Boals to call a quick timeout. Coming from behind on the road is the last thing a struggling team needs, but Ohio quickly climbed back into the game and controlled the majority of the first half.
Bowling Green’s Marcus Johnson, the MAC’s leading scorer, presented a huge challenge for an Ohio team that struggles defensively. Factor in Johnson’s 6’7″ 265 lbs frame, an undersized Bobcats team had their hands full at all three levels. While Johnson had 12 points in the first half alone, Ohio did what it could to contain him down low, forcing Johnson to turn the ball over twice and shoot a handful of contested threes. However, Johnson’s buzzer-beating fadeaway three to end the first half gave Bowling Green a 34-32 lead entering the break.
“In the first half, he was feeling pretty good about himself,” Ohio guard Shereef Mitchell said. “In the second half, we did a good job taking away what he’s trying to do…we knew he was a good player coming in and we just tried to make shots tough on him.”
The Falcons got off to a hot start coming out of the half, which has been a common theme amongst Ohio’s opponents this season. Instead of letting Bowling Green’s lead grow, Ohio changed its offensive playstyle by driving into the paint and drawing fouls, rather than looking for shots beyond the arc. Ohio ended up shooting 34 total free throws and made a whopping 30 of them, being the difference maker in the game.
“We were trying to get more paint touches,” Boals said. “They (Bowling Green) do a great job of swiping and reaching, we had to be strong with the basketball.”
It’s been a common theme in the Boals era to go on a run during the month of February, as the Bobcats sport a .627 winning percentage under Boals from February-March. After winning two of its last three games, the belief in the locker room is that it’s time to start playing their best basketball.
“We gotta keep going. It was a great bounce back after the way we lost (Saturday),” Boals said. “Give our guys a lot of credit, we got off to a poor start and fought back.”
“March is the biggest month in basketball, so we’re trying to prepare for that,” Mitchell said. “We know we have another road game on Friday, so we’re just gonna try and take it game by game.”
The Bobcats will be back in action Friday night at Kent State, with tip-off set for 7 p.m. on CBS Sports Network.