Ohio (13-10, 7-4 Mid-American Conference) is now the winner of six of its last seven games after securing a thrilling 84-79 win against Ball State on the road in overtime. In a back-and-forth second half, Jaylin Hunter led the way for Ohio with a career-high 32 points.
In overtime, Ohio's 12 points were enough to keep Ball State, who hurt itself quite a bit at the free-throw line in overtime, out of contention.
A defining moment of overtime was on an Ohio defensive possession with under a minute left to play in the overtime period. Ohio led by just one point when Ball State's Jalin Anderson went up for a three-pointer over Gabe Wiznitzer.
The shot missed the mark, but when Anderson came down, whistles blew, signifying a shooting foul on Wiznitzer, which would yield three free throws from Anderson.
Just one made free-throw would tie the game for Ball State, two would have given it a late lead and making all three would have given it an incredible chance at victory. Instead, Anderson missed all three and the Cardinals never recovered.
Getting to overtime wasn't without its troubles for Ohio.
After starting the game with a 13-0 lead, Ohio never let Ball State get within five points in the first half. After taking a nine-point lead into halftime, Ohio came out of the locker room a tad sluggish, to say the least, a tendency that the team has shown at various points this season.
Not even four minutes into the second half, Ball State had brought the game to within one possession, and by the 13-minute mark, Ohio saw its first deficit of the evening.
After zero lead changes occurred in the first half, 10 occurred in the final 13 minutes of the game. Ball State went back and forth for the entirety of the second half but ultimately couldn't get out to any large lead due to its inability to slow down Hunter.
Hunter led all scorers with 32 points to go along with five rebounds and a team-leading five assists.
Though the lead changed 10 times in those final 13 minutes, Ball State's lead never expanded beyond two points.
Ohio struggled in the second half because it was unable to rebound. Ohio was outrebounded 45-34. Most notably, Ohio allowed 19 offensive rebounds, which incurred 22 second-chance points for Ball State.
AJ Clayton and Aidan Hadaway led Ohio when the defense wasn't struggling. Both Clayton and Hadaway led the team with three blocks, while Hadaway also led with 10 rebounds.
One of Hadaway's most important rebounds came at the very end of regulation on a missed layup from Ball State. Hadaway was able to jump up through a sea of Ball State players to give Ohio the ball back rather than allowing Ball State's lead to expand to two possessions inside of one minute.
It wasn't the cleanest game for Ohio, but the team is undoubtedly playing its best basketball of the season, with back-to-back road wins after an 0-5 start in road games as well as a four-game winning streak in the MAC.
