AKRON ' Tim O'Shea said bluntly that he'd never call a timeout with the final possession in his team's hands. If they need a last second effort, the Bobcats want to turn around immediately after allowing a basket and ram the ball down their opponent's throat.
So with 9.6 seconds remaining, and the Bobcats down by one, guard Bubba Walther brought the ball up the court.
Walther found himself boxed out and holding the ball on the left side of the arc where he took a shot. As the ball caromed off the rim, Jerome Tillman and Leon Williams made one last desperate leap for the rebound, but it had been swallowed up by a sea of white Akron jerseys, as the Bobcats fell to the Zips 55-54 last night in James A. Rhodes Arena.
I think we had a shot to get Leon the ball because he cleared his man
O'Shea said. If we had just thrown it directly to Leon they were going to be in a tough spot. What do you do? You probably have to foul him and then we're back at the free throw line with a chance to win. That was my disappointment.
I thought we had some people open there and we didn't make a smart play, he said. We'll learn from that.
In a painstakingly close game the Bobcats (10-6 1-2 Mid-American Conference) and Zips (13-3
3-0 MAC) exchanged leads six times in the final four minutes before forward Nate Linhart
who led the Zips with 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting
put Akron ahead for good.
Tillman had been guarding Linhart before that final basket
but when he left to help on a double team
the Akron forward burned the Bobcats when he made an improbable lay-up with his non-shooting left hand.
It was just instinct, said Tillman
who led the Bobcats going 6-of-10 from the field for 15 points. I tried to play that on my instinct. It looked like he was beat but then he countered back to the middle and I was already out of position.
Despite how tightly Ohio played the high scoring Zips ' Akron averaged 75 points per game heading in to last night's game ' the Bobcats were frustrated by little mistakes that most of them said could have made the difference in the down-to-the-wire game.
We trip on a loose ball, every little play like that counts, guard Mike Allen said. That's a one-possession game. If we could get a rebound earlier in the game, that's the game.
Allen
who added nine assists and five points
said the Zips' defense was a large reason the Bobcats gave up 16 turnovers.
I think it was mostly due to their ball pressure and denying the wings, Allen said. Most teams don't get up in us like that. They did a great job of taking away our entry passes.
But the Bobcats don't have time to lick the wounds of what could have been in Akron with a 14-3
