Sports
Ohio Women’s Basketball drops home leg of MAC-Sun Belt Challenge to Old Dominion, 84-76
By: Marc Goldstein
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — During its strong start to the season, Ohio (13-8, 7-4 MAC) has proved a number of things. It can certainly find ways to win games in a number of different fashions. However, the ability to make a late comeback has not been the one consistently at its disposal, especially since the beginning of January. In its loss to Old Dominion (15-10, 6-6 SBC), Ohio was flummoxed down the stretch as it dropped the second game of the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge, 84-76.
Ohio started off all four quarters by scoring the first points. In the first, Elli Garnett grabbed an offensive rebound and laid it up for a pair before Bella Ranallo hit a three from the corner for a quick 5-0 lead for Ohio. However, as would become a recurring theme in the game, Old Dominion did not blink. Simaru Fields got a three of her own to trim the deficit to two points before Riley Stack got an easy shot in close to tie the game. En’dya Buford would hit a three on Old Dominion’s next possession, the first of the five she hit during the game.
Ohio and Old Dominion would go to battle offensively in the first quarter. The defensive pressure was nonexistent for both teams for the first couple minutes, but Old Dominion was able to find its footing in the second half of the first quarter. The teams traded threes by Fields and Bailey Tabeling around the midway point of the quarter to make the score 15-12, Old Dominion. However, as Ohio’s offense began to stall, Old Dominion’s did no such thing.
Everything was falling for Old Dominion and it took a 22-14 lead with 2:57 left in the first on a three by Kelsey Thompson. Ohio battled to close the gap before the end of the quarter. Asiah Baxter got the and-one layup before Monica Williams made a layup with 45 seconds left in the first to make it 24-19 after one quarter of play in the books.
“They were just more aggressive than us,” said Ranallo. “We just laid back and let them do anything and we need to set the tone earlier.”
The Bobcats would tie the score at 24 on a three by ReRe Jennings. The Monarchs, though, were quick to respond with Buford getting a three to fall just 16 seconds later. Minutes later, Buford would convert a four-point play that gave the Monarchs a 31-26 lead. Buford continued her hot start to the game with yet another shot falling from deep. The punch-counter punch action would continue to persist throughout the remainder of the half with the Monarchs holding a 44-40 lead after the first 20 minutes.
Left without answers for Buford, who scored 19 in the first half, Aliah McWhorter explains how she hopes Ohio is able to lock down scorers when they get things going offensively.
“Sometimes, people are just going to have a good game,” said McWhorter. “They are going to be able to make tough shots even when we play tough defense. I think it goes back to doing our work early. We don’t want to let them catch the ball. If we know she likes to drive right, we need to take away that hand. We need to try to do our best at mitigating them by doing what they want to do.”
Old Dominion shooting 45% from the field in the first half is palatable if Ohio is able to shoot at a clip better than its 36% mark from the field. In addition, Old Dominion went 7/14 from the three-point line, including Buford going 4/6 from deep. Other than the little details, the stats after one half were rather even and the margins between the teams were razor thin.
Like the first two quarters, Ohio was the first to strike in the third. Ranallo hit a quick layup on a runout before Baxter similarly hit one on the fast break. Ohio’s best defense early in the third was forcing turnovers or long rebounds and throwing a long pass down the length of the court for a layup. That would occur again when McWhorter tied the score at 46 before giving Ohio a 48-46 lead on fastbreak layups.
Like earlier in the game, Old Dominion was not phased by Ohio jumping in front. Thompson got a shot to fall to reclaim the lead as part of a 7-0 run where Old Dominion got out to a 53-48 lead. The rest of the quarter would be controlled by Old Dominion as it played the game at its pace, leading 61-59 after the third.
A prevailing issue that flared up in the third quarter was the inability for the Bobcats to make shots in close. The Bobcats went 13/41 on layups during the entire game, but a number of open ones in the third felt like gut punches for the comeback attempt. Head coach Bob Boldon thinks that the struggles were attributable to the Monarchs and what they did well.
“I thought we generated good shots,” said Boldon. “We missed a couple of them and maybe that’s because they blocked a few inside. They were big and long and athletic and got off the ground quickly. We shot it pretty well from the three-point line to counteract (them inside), but we need to shoot layups better and shoot free throws better.”
After McWhorter got a layup to fall in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter, Old Dominion scored five straight to go back up 66-61. Tabeling responded with a three for Ohio to get it back within a possession and Ranallo got a three of her own after two made free throws by Old Dominion as the score sat at 68-67 in favor of Old Dominion. The momentum appeared to shift in Ohio’s favor when Danni Scully got an emphatic and-one layup to give Ohio a 70-69 lead with 6:35.
Like a broken record, Buford and Old Dominion answered immediately with a three just 15 seconds later. The rest of the game largely saw the Old Dominion defense turn things up to a level it had not reached at any point in the game. They limited Ohio to just six points after the Scully and-one. Meanwhile, Old Dominion would start to salt away the game with threes by Thompson and some timely shotmaking by Nevaeh Scott.
Although Ohio lost the game, the result does little to change the outlook of this team. The awkward nature of having a nonconference game in the middle of the conference slate makes it a challenge for the program both on and off the floor with only a few days since Ohio’s most recent game.
“This is a bizarre game to play,” said Boldon. “It puts a lot of stress on our staff to try to figure out a gameplan for players that we don’t know a lot about… It was just really hard to find a reference point to know how good the other team’s players are (on film).”
Regardless of the result, the clearest thing from the game is that Ohio still has a lot of work to do in order to reach its full ceiling. When it is unable to shoot the lights out, being efficient inside is imperative. The inside game was not working against Old Dominion, making the comeback effort an uphill battle, although something that can be remedied with some tactical changes and better shotmaking.