Coming off a win at Buffalo on Saturday, Ohio was looking to keep its offensive firepower against Western Michigan. The Bobcats relied heavily on the 3-pointers in the first half, hitting eight of 18 attempts, led by senior guard Ajay Sheldon, who made three. Sheldon has had a rough go of it this year from deep, but it hasn’t shaken his confidence on any given night.
“I mean, it feels good,” said Sheldon about his shooting performance Tuesday night. “I think you would expect to have ups and downs when you're shooting a lot of 3-pointers. I think you have games where you are oh for five, and you have games, and you are five for five. It's normal to have either so, there’s really no reason to get upset about it, get too high or too low.”
The starters kept the hot play rolling with some excellent passing through the first 20 minutes of play. Senior guard Jackson Paveletzke had excellent court vision throughout the period, tallying four assists along with seven first-half points. He wasn’t the only one producing for Ohio, as both redshirt forward Javan Simmons and senior forward Aidan Hadaway were drawing double teams and helping get shots for shooters on the perimeter.
“They play off each other the right way,” Ohio head coach Jeff Boals said of his starting group. “When you have two guys like Hadaway and (Javan Simmons) that can post up and demand a double team, then you throw Paveletzke in there. You can post him up, or he drives in there, and he draws a double team. Now it's a matter of executing. We knew coming in, they were going to be heavy gap help. Shots were going to be there, and (Paveletzke) did a great job of facilitating.”
Ohio led by double digits at halftime, and double digits became a common theme for Ohio starters as the second half continued. The first to cross into double figures was freshman guard JJ Kelly, who had a quick 5-0 run to start the half, and he would finish with 10 points in the second half for a total of 13 for the game, one of many key contributors.
The next to cross over 10 points for the evening were the front court pair of Simmons and Hadaway, who continued to make the best of double team situations and take on Western Michigan defenders one-on-one. The pair would finish with 17 and 15 points, respectively, and both men were key to closing the door on the Broncos.
The Bobcats guards finished off the nigh of solid scoring efforts in the final few minutes. Paveletzke went to the line 10 times in the second half and did not miss, and then Sheldon hit his fourth 3-pointer of the game in the final two minutes to ice away the game for Ohio.
This starting group has remained the same throughout all of conference play, outside of injury complications, and Tuesday night was a great showing of the chemistry this group has built throughout the season.
“I think, and not just starting, but from top to bottom, we have a close team,” said Sheldon. “I think everybody on this team wants to see everybody succeed. There's nobody who's in it for themselves. So, I think, obviously, it's been like that all year. May not look like it did tonight, but I think we're a close group, so I think the chemistry is good and getting even better.
