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Ohio freshman guard Ryan Taylor shoots over two St. Bonaventure defenders during their game on December 6 at the Convocation Center. 

Late turnovers fault Bobcats against Broncos

The Bobcats lost another road game Wednesday after late miscues against Western Michigan.

During consecutive possessions with less than three minutes remaining, the Bobcats passed the ball to senior forward Maurice Ndour.

The first pass came from sophomore forward Antonio Campbell, who tried to force a pass through a Western Michigan defender. It resulted in a turnover, but the Broncos didn’t score during their next possession and the Bobcats remained down by four.

When Ohio regained the ball, redshirt senior Javarez “Bean” Willis tossed an overhead pass from the three-point arc to Ndour in the post.

Ndour missed a layup, and Western Michigan soon secured an 80-69 win Wednesday in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

“We put ourselves in position to win a ballgame tonight and I’m sick about it. Period. End of story,” coach Saul Phillips said.

Phillips continued to say Ndour makes that layup nine out of 10 times. But Ndour missed it short off the backboard and Ohio didn’t regain momentum after leading 67-65 with 6:01 to play.

The Broncos (16-10, 7-6 Mid-American Conference) finished regulation on a 15-2 run.

“Believe me when I point that out and single him out, I’m not singling him out,” Phillips said. “He did a valiant job through a very frustrating night.”

Ndour committed a foul during the Bobcats’ first possession of the game. He went into halftime with three fouls, but only fouled one more time in the second half and finished with 12 points.

Despite his foul trouble, the Bobcats (9-15, 4-9 MAC) only trailed by two at halftime and remained in contention until the missed layup. Western Michigan then made a 3-pointer before Campbell committed a flagrant foul on the Broncos’ following possession.

“We just didn’t execute down the stretch,” Phillips said. “We didn’t take care of our possessions well enough at the end to win the game.”

Willis led all scorers with 21 points and made five of his nine 3-pointers. The Bobcats used freshman guard Ryan Taylor to advance the ball up the court, a change from usually having Willis or senior Stevie Taylor as a point guard.

Phillips said that having Ryan facilitating the offense helped create different looks for Willis, who normally would pull up and shoot instead of being passed the ball.

Although Willis also created his own offense, he wasn’t alone. Redshirt junior Treg Setty scored 11 points off the bench, including five straight in the first half to keep Ohio in contention.

Phillips said he thought the Bobcats played more as a team than during Saturday’s loss to Miami. Still, Ohio is now 1-8 in road games and has the second-worst record in MAC play.

“It doesn’t make me feel good, but we’ve got to build on something right now or else you’re just giving in and that doesn’t make me feel good either,” Phillips said.

@chadlindskog

cl027410@ohio.edu

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