The Bobcats steal one against a higher seed and get their biggest win of the season, knocking off third place Kent State by two. McClure goes for 26 (career high?) and Dennis goes for 14 (career high confirmed). They gave up 18 second chance points and are still not a smart passing team, but they shot very well from every level and just edged out the turnover battle.
Ohio is still eighth in the standings but with Miami and Akron losing tonight, they are a game ahead of both and hold tiebreaker against both.
Bob has to do something about getting capable size on the roster. 18 Kent offensive rebounds to 25 Ohio defensive rebounds. It's a glaring weakness every night. You're going to gas your team, who is already short-handed, asking them to defend a possession where the opponent gets two or three cracks at it.
I thought they played 36 really good minutes of basketball...then completely took their foot off the gas with 4 minutes to play in favor of bleeding clock. Yes, they won by 2, but they were very fortunate to hang on. McClure was awesome and Dennis hit some big shots. Tabeling didn't score a ton but hit a huge 3, also. But dang, I wish they had stayed at least a bit aggressive for 2 more minutes. If not for a 50/50 call on a Kent charge and a Kent miss at the horn, Ohio would have blown a 10 point 4th quarter lead at home.
And yes, the rebounding issue is obvious. I've said it for years, Bob's teams always seem to lack size/rebounding. I get it if you want a perimeter oriented team, but there needs to be at least some measure of rebounding on the floor. Kent was a big team that hammered them on the glass, but the rebounding and size deficit has been there for a while for the ladies.