While momentum may not mean everything, the Bobcats are acutely aware that the last thing they want to do is limp into next week's Mid-American Conference Tournament the losers of three straight.
Winning Sunday's regular season finale against Buffalo in The Convo would guarantee the fourth seed and final bye in the tournament, but the Bobcats hope it could also help them get back to the style of play that enabled them to have a five-game winning streak in late January.
We definitely don't want to lose again going into the tournament
guard Bert Whittington IV said. Everything's not clicking right now with the team. It's not chemistry but more that our overall game is just not there right now. I'm sure we'll get back to it though.
Ohio (18-11, 8-7 MAC) has lost five of the eight games since that winning streak, and has seemed to lose the consistency that had made the team successful before. There were games where the stalwart defensive play that had become a trademark early on faltered at inopportune times and, at Kent State and against Akron, proved unable to stop an opponent.
There were offensive droughts, like at Miami and at Eastern Michigan, when the Bobcats failed to have any player score in double digits and slow starts that at home led to dramatic comebacks against Bowling Green and George Mason. What it all signals isn't any great mystery either, forward Jerome Tillman said, Ohio has to find its consistency once again.
It's just all the little stuff that we were focused on in the beginning that we have to get back to Tillman said. On defense
we need to contest more shots and not let teams do whatever they want. Guys have to make better reads sometimes ... make the smart plays instead of the glamorous plays. If we're down
we have to know that we can't get it all back in one play
we've just got to chip away at it.
Both Tillman and Whittington said that teams have found ways to close in on Ohio's offense as the season has progressed, making it harder for the Bobcats to get the ball to the post and getting in their passing lanes. But neither thought it was something the Bobcats couldn't remedy.
In the past eight games, the seven Bobcats who see the greatest amount of playing time have shot a combined 41.5 percent (145-of-342) from the field. It's not horrible, but not as good as the team might like for the amount of shots they're taking.
I think a big thing is our shot selection
Whittington said. We need to move the ball around more because it's been stagnant a little bit with everybody standing around just waiting for Leon (Williams) to get the ball inside instead of getting in there and everybody moving and getting good shots off.
And there's no better time for Ohio to make the switch back to consistency than Sunday against the Bulls, Whittington said.
We just have to get focused and motivated again.
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Katie Carrera
