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Bassett, Cooper lead No. 9 seed Ohio over Akron in overtime

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By David Carducci
March 14, 2010

 

By David Carducci

Record-Courier staff writer

CLEVELAND — Ohio University had to run the gauntlet to claim the Mid-American Conference’s only NCAA Tournament bid in what would have been considered a shocker just a month ago.

First, the ninth-seeded Bobcats had to be the only first-round team to win on the road at a campus site.

Once in Cleveland, they knocked off the tournament’s No. 1 seed in the quarterfinals and the school’s biggest rival in the semis.

In the final act, the Bobcats ousted the league’s No. 2 power and the tournament’s No. 3 seed in an 81-75 overtime thriller over the University of Akron in Saturday’s MAC championship game at Quicken Loans Arena.

“I think maybe tonight when I finally get to sleep more than two hours, I’ll probably take a deep breath, look at it and say, wow,” said Ohio head coach John Groce, who led the Bobcats to the NCAA Tournament for the 12th time in school history. “We had a tough road. We had to go on the road (at Ball State in round one). And we were fortunate we were the only team to win on the road, and you know how hard that is to do in our league.

“Then to come here and play Kent State, our arch-rival Miami and Akron. It wasn’t easy,” Groce said.

When two talented guards like Indiana transfer Armon Bassett (25 points) and true freshman point guard D.J. Cooper (23 points) get hot at the right time, a team like Ohio can accomplish the seemingly impossible in March.

Bassett capped his MAC-Tournament record total of 116 points with a breakaway dunk just before the final buzzer, putting the final exclamation point on the championship and the Bobcats’ remarkable turnaround.

It wasn’t long ago that the Bobcats were considered an afterthought in the MAC.

“We started off the conference 0-4, lost four close games where we felt we could have won any one of them,” said Bassett. “We kept believing in ourselves. Coach kept preaching to us. We just listened to him. A lot of teams would have thrown the towel in, but everyone put their hardhat on.”

That hardhat mentality helped the Bobcats stay focused in a back-and-forth battle on Saturday that saw them trade leads with the Zips 24 times and deadlock the score on another 13 occasions.

It also made it easier to regroup after taking one more punch to the stomach with six seconds to play regulation when Akron guard Steve McNees hit a running 3-pointer over 6-foot-10 center Kenneth van Kempen to tie the game at 68 and force overtime.

McNees pulled the same trick to force a second overtime against Eastern Michigan in a quarterfinal win just two days earlier.

Akron’s Jimmy Conyers (19 points, 12 rebounds) and Chris McNight (18 points, 10 rebounds) both posted double-doubles to keep the Zips in the battle.

“We put up up a terrific fight,” said Akron head coach Keith Dambrot. “We fought, but we didn’t quite have it. We shot 35.9 percent from the field and 26.7 percent from 3, and we were right there to win.

“That doesn’t happen very often,” Dambrot said.

OHIO 81, AKRON 75 (OT)

OHIO (21-14) — Keely 1-3 2-2 4, van Kempen 4-10 2-2 10, Bassett 8-16 7-12 25, Cooper 7-16 4-4 23, Freeman 1-3 0-0 3, Washington 3-6 2-4 8, Baltic 2-3 0-1 4, Sayles 2-3 0-0 4. Totals 28-60 17-25 81.

AKRON (24-10) — C. McKnight 6-16 5-5 18, Conyers 7-13 5-5 19, Marshall 4-7 0-1 8, McNees 4-13 0-0 12, Hitchens 0-3 0-0 0, Steward 0-0 0-0 0, McClanahan 0-3 0-0 0, Roberts 5-10 0-0 11, Cvetinovic 0-4 1-2 1, B. McKnight 2-9 0-1 6. Totals 28-78 11-14 75.

Halftime—Ohio 36-34. End Of Regulation—Tied 68. 3-Point Goals—Ohio 8-17 (Cooper 5-9, Bassett 2-4, Freeman 1-3, Sayles 0-1), Akron 8-30 (McNees 4-9, B.McKnight 2-6, C.McKnight 1-3, Roberts 1-5, McClanahan 0-2, Hitchens 0-2, Conyers 0-3). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Ohio 42 (van Kempen 9), Akron 48 (Conyers 12). Assists—Ohio 12 (Cooper 6), Akron 12 (Conyers 3). Total Fouls—Ohio 15, Akron 23. A—9,533.

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Contact David Carducci at dcarducci@recordpub.com

 




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