In Ohio’s (12-6, 6-2 Mid-American Conference) 75-66 loss to Toledo (9-8, 4-3 MAC) on Saturday, the struggles that this team has faced throughout the entire season were highlighted, with turnovers and rebounding being the two biggest issues. In this game, Ohio was outrebounded 43 to 28, with Toledo having 12 offensive rebounds and Ohio having eight.
“We turn the ball over too much and we’re a bad rebounding team, and tonight we turned the ball over too much and were a bad rebounding team,“ Ohio coach Bob Bolden said. "Until we’re able to get those two things fixed, we’re limited on how good we can be."
The offensive rebounds on Toledo’s end led to a staggering 20 second-chance points, more than doubling Ohio’s nine. No player on Ohio’s roster was able to grab five rebounds this game, while Toledo had four separate players grab five or more rebounds. This has been a theme for Ohio, as almost all of its losses involve getting outrebounded by a large margin.
“That was one of the big things on film,“ Ohio’s Bailey Tabeling said. "We just struggled to do that.”
In those games where Ohio has struggled to rebound, the team’s shooting usually saves it, but that wasn’t the case in this game. In the first quarter, not a single field goal was made by the Bobcats, with all seven points coming from free throws, as Toledo fouled a lot in the first quarter.
“Part of the problem is that we’ve won some games and we've been outrebounded because we’ve been able to overcome that with good shooting,“ coach Bolden said. "Obviously, tonight was not a good shooting night.”
With these shots missing along with the rebounding issues, it put Ohio into a deep hole very early on, with a small chance to get out of it. This hole was further dug when key starter Elli Garnett went down with an injury, hampering the Bobcats rotation.
“I think it did kind of limit us a little bit to what we wanted to do,“ Asiah Baxter said. "It sucks to say, but just seeing the scoreboard, we’re not getting what we want.”
Ohio has been a very good team at forcing turnovers, forcing Toledo into 24 of them today. The defense has been a strong part of this team, anchoring Ohio when the offense isn’t flowing. Despite Ohio only having points off free throws in the first quarter, the game was only a nine-point difference.
“Just make sure that we’re helping each other,“ Baxter said. "We always say help the helper, so we also make sure that we’re helping the helper.”
The defense was not able to keep the Bobcats in the game the whole time, though, as eventually Toledo's offense broke through. In this game, Toledo scored 44 points in the paint. Ohio’s defense also started to rack up a lot of fouls in the later quarters, leading to numerous and one baskets for Toledo.
“I think we got a little lost or confused a little bit at times, but making sure that we come together every free throw or next huddle and we’re just letting each other know,“ Baxter said. "Like okay, let's do this better.”
Along with Ohio forcing the other team to turnover the ball, it often comes with lots of Bobcat turnovers, though. Most of Ohio’s turnovers are very preventable, with little mistakes adding up and hurting the team in the long run. In this game, Ohio had 18 turnovers to eight assists, leading to a very stagnant offense. This was very visible early on and continued as a trend throughout the game.
“Some of those turnovers are mindset things as well, and just trying to mentally approach it and understand the importance of it,“ coach Bolden said.
With this loss, coach Bolden plans to try to fix these issues facing the team, but other issues have popped up relating to players being able to suit up for games.
“One way you can fix rebounding is to drill it in practice,“ coach Bolden said. "That’s just a scary initiative this time of year, especially with the number of people we finished the game with.
Ohio could possibly be heading into Wednesday's game with seven players, severely limiting the amount of practice that can be done to fix these glaring issues.
“Our kids go out and play as best they can, and we’ll deal with whatever comes with that,” coach Bolden said.
