Sports

Ohio Men’s Basketball gets crucial win over Ball State 69-57

By: Eva Greene
Posted on: Tuesday, February 17, 2026

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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — Ohio Men’s Basketball (14-13, 8-6 MAC) hosted Ball State (8-18, 3-10 MAC) in a critical conference matchup. The last time these teams played, Ball State prevailed 76-71 over Ohio. The Bobcats rewrote the script this time and they won 69-57 

The first minutes of the game would start scoreless, but an Aidan Hadaway to JJ Kelly alley-oop would erupt the crowd and get scoring started for both sides. After Ohio’s first basket Ball State’s defense locked in forcing three turnovers and a scoring drought for the Bobcats that lasted over eight minutes.

Thanks to the stellar defense by the Cardinals, their offense went on a 7-0 run. However, a Jesse Burns midrange shot would reignite the Bobcats offense as they would hit back-to-back-to-back threes with Ajay Sheldon, Kelly and Hadaway contributing to their fire.  

Along with the Ohio offense, their defense also stepped up as they forced the Cardinals to a scoring drought that lasted for over five minutes with multiple turnovers. To end the first period, Ohio goes on an 23-2 run led by Javan Simmons and Jackson Paveletzke, 32-15 Bobcats.  

Coming out of half, Ball State started off hot with Devon Barnes draining a three and Preston Copeland driving past defenders for the layup. Meanwhile the Bobcats would start slow as they wouldn’t score for four minutes, but a Simmons to Paveletzke layup would finally start up their offense.  

Both teams would go back and forth for a while, trading scores for a while. Throughout, Ohio would never really get a chance to continue their momentum from the ending of the first as the Cardinals would never really go away.  

Back-to-back threes from Sheldon and Hadaway would once again reignite the Ohio offense with ten minutes left in the game. As their offense started up, the Cardinals’ offense also starter up as Barnes would sink one to cut the lead to single digits. However, Sheldon hit one right back at the Cardinals to push the lead back to double digits.  

Both offenses would continue to trade scores, although Ohio still holds a 10-point lead over Ball State. The Cardinals never really went away, their offense still continued to score on the Bobcats. A Paveletzke fade-away and-one and a shifty layup would officially silence the Cardinals as the Bobcats win 69-57.

Hadaway and Paveletzke finished the night as Ohio’s top scorers both with 18 points, Hadaway also led the team in rebounds with eight. 

Hadaway spoke about how head coach Jeff Boals hyped up the team to go on their 23-2 run after the long scoring drought.

“Coach was telling us to stick with it; we work on these shots and sometimes shots just don’t fall. That’s in every single league and country; every single team is going to have games where they don’t hit shots. You just have to stick with it, we stuck with it, and we won,” he said.

“The big thing is that when that happens you have to execute on the offensive end, and I thought we did a really good job of that,” Boals said. 

Ohio will play against Northern Illinois on Saturday for another big MAC game.