It's been quite the long season for the Bobcats, but their handle on most games has evaporated in short order.
They have been victimized by huge scoring runs on countless occasions and often give away momentum at important junctures.
The Mid-American Conference schedule has been equally unkind, and the Bobcats will be the first to admit that they haven't maintained 40 minutes of focus.
With four games remaining, coach Semeka Randall and her staff are imploring the team to play energized basketball with the MAC standings remaining wide open.
There is a chance the Bobcats could earn a top-four spot in the conference tournament, albeit a skinny one.
They would need four closing wins and a lot of help from teams ahead to make it happen.
But with a stinging loss to the Golden Flashes earlier in the season still fresh on the mind, there's no better time to start than now, guard Jenny Poff said.
When we played them up there
we were ahead the whole game and they got chances down the stretch Poff said.
These last four games we have are against beatable teams
teams that we have confidence we can beat.
In that game, Ohio held a three-point lead with less than three minutes to play and saw it vanish. Kent's Jamilah Humes and Taisja Jones, two of the MAC's predatory scorers, teamed to ignite a turnover-laden rally in the closing moments.
The Bobcats gave the ball away three times in the final three minutes, and Humes' free throw with 14 seconds left sealed a sour defeat.
And that was not an anomaly by any means.
Ohio's recurrent malady has been sluggish beginnings, and with a hefty dose of practice time at their disposal this week, the coaches and players have stressed the necessity of showing up and being ready to go from the opening tip.
The last couple games
we've really tried to go hard right from the start
Poff said.
We've been a second half team a lot this season
and we're trying to change that.
The difference between talking about and executing always exists, but Poff said that more than anything strategic, the team has to develop an authoritative mentality from the outset every night.
We don't want to get in a hole early
that has to be different
Poff said.
It's funny to think that if we win our last four games and get some help
the conference is struggling
and anything could happen.
This season is definitely not over, and we don't think it is either.
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30692,2010-02-18 22:02:00,Local bands to cover favorite artists tonight at The Union,The art of the cover dates back virtually to rock 'n' roll's inception.
A brief history of rock can be mapped out based on who was covering whom
