The Bobcats showed they could be dominant at both ends of the floor and, in the process, gave Dan Dakich's overachieving Falcons a harsh reality check.
A combination of tough Ohio defense and miserable Bowling Green shooting turned a matchup between the Mid-American Conference's top two squads into a laugher. The Bobcats held the Falcons to a season-low 13 points in the first half and dominated in the paint throughout in a 67-49 win last night in The Convo.
Defensively
in the first half that's about as well we've played all season coach Tim O'Shea said.
The Falcons shot 17 percent from the field, netting only four of their 23 shots, in a first half where they had as many turnovers (13) as points. Bowling Green's top threat, MAC leading scorer Martin Samarco, was held scoreless until he made a free throw with 7:43 remaining in the first half ' about 10 minutes too late.
We didn't give Samarco anything
O'Shea said. We made it very
very difficult for him to get the kind of looks he's used to in the motion offense. He was just having one of those nights on the offensive end
but that's life on the road.
While acknowledging Ohio's strong defensive effort, Dakich was a little more concerned with how poorly his team played.
I think that we played unbelievably bad in the first half
Dakich said. I'm not sure that (Ohio) played that great. It's not like they knocked down eight 3's to go up by 18 in the first half.
Bowling Green came into the game riding high, winners in six of its last seven and atop the MAC East alongside Ohio with 10 wins. Its poor performance in its first conference road game of the season, however, left its coach scratching his head.
We were awful
Dakich said. I just thought we were flat out bad.
Forwards Leon Williams and Jerome Tillman paced an Ohio offense that exploited a weak Bowling Green inside presence. Williams led all scorers with 20 points and was one rebound shy of a double-double with 9 boards. Tillman would reach the benchmark statistic for post players, scoring 17 and grabbing 11 rebounds.
They've really developed into two bonified
first line guys in this conference
O' Shea said. They've been a handful for everyone this season.
Tillman said that he and Williams have developed great chemistry.
I feed of his energy and I think he feeds off mine too
Tillman said. We both know each others' games and what we're trying to do. We just got that confidence now.
The Bobcats came out of the gates confident, showing no signs of a hangover from last Saturday's big win over MAC East favorite Akron. Once they went up 13-3, their lead never went lower than double digits. A Stephen King 3-pointer with 26 second remaining in the half gave the Bobcats their biggest advantage of the half, making the score 32-13 before the teams headed to the locker rooms.
After scoring just one point in the first half, Samarco woke up in the second half to finish with a team-high 12 points on 4-of-20 shooting, his worst outing of the season.
The closest Bowling Green would come to Ohio was after an 8-0 run that cut the lead to 13 midway through the second half, but the deficit would be too much to overcome.
