Knowing that they still had a chance to snag the final bye in next week's Mid-American Conference Tournament didn't console the Ohio players after the Bobcats dropped their first home game of the season to Akron last night in The Convo.
Ohio chased Akron for a majority of the game but had no answer to the Zips' opportunistic offense. The Zips ripped apart Ohio's typically stingy defense in the second half with 64 percent shooting from the field on their way to an 80-77 win over the Bobcats, who have now lost five of their past seven conference games.
The loss still hurts
guard Bubba Walther said. Our goals are still to get a bye but we're kind of stumbling into it. We need to take care of our business on Sunday because it's not feeling good right now.
Despite the loss, Ohio (18-11, 8-7 MAC) remains in the race for the fourth seed and last bye in the tournament because of losses by Miami, Eastern Michigan and Bowling Green last night. The Bobcats need to beat Buffalo on Sunday in the regular season finale to guarantee themselves a bye, as they own the tiebreaker ' a win over Western Michigan ' against Miami (14-14, 8-7 MAC).
Akron (21-8, 11-4 MAC) didn't look like it was destined to lock up the third seed in the tournament early on yesterday because even though the Zips led, they couldn't find a way to stop Leon Williams.
Williams had 17 of Ohio's 31 first-half points as he dominated inside against the Zips' Jeremiah Wood, prompting Akron coach Keith Dambrot to compare him to a popular 1920s bodybuilder.
He was like Charles Atlas out there today Dambrot said. He was just throwing guys around like they were pieces of Swiss cheese. He just manhandled us and we didn't have any answers for him. He's never beat us that badly ever
but he pounded us today.
But Akron was able to avoid Williams for much of the second half as Ohio's marquee forward quickly found himself in trouble with four personal fouls and 12 minutes remaining to play.
If the Bobcats wanted to play catch up, they'd have to do it without Williams, who was the only Ohio player with more than five points in the first half. Forward Jerome Tillman added 14 of his total 18 points in the second half as he picked up the slack, receiving help from Walther, who piled on 17 points of his own.
Jerome was the only one who had really been scoring up to that point (in the second half)
said Walther, who was second on the Bobcats with 22 points. I was like 'Jerome needs help. He doesn't have his mate inside to help him
' so I knew I had to step up. I also knew I had to take good shots
but I knew that they were going to guard me really tight because they know my game.
Ultimately, it was Ohio's defense that struggled to keep the Bobcats in the game, as Akron found wide-open players late in the shot clock, repeatedly quelling any comeback hopes.
I just think we broke down
Williams said. We just weren't playing solid defense like we usually do
and it takes a tollwhen they keep making layups like that and just making shots at the end of the shot clock. It was demoralizing a little bit.
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