ATHENS, Ohio – Ohio was hurt on the offensive boards for the third straight game and it helped Kent State rally in the final minutes for a 69-66 victory Saturday night at The Convo.

D.J. Cooper missed a pair of 3-pointers in the final seconds, and Ohio dropped to 5-7 at home this season and below .500 overall after surrendering 18 offensive rebounds to Kent State.

“That was a tough one,” Ohio coach John Groce said. “Looking at it, I think the thing that stands out was they had 18 offensive rebounds to our 15 defensive rebounds. We haven’t gotten 40-some percent back on the defensive glass in a game all year. … That’s three MAC games in a row where we’ve lost the possession battle by nearly double figures or more. I’m very concerned about that because that means you have to be off the charts efficient and your margin for error is very small when you get brutalized on the backboard like we did today.”

The Bobcats also were just 11 of 21 at the free-throw line, with Cooper going 6 of 11. He did lead the way for Ohio with 16 points, eight assists and six rebounds.

DeVaughn Washington finished with 16 points, Tommy Freeman had 12 points and Ivo Baltic scored 11 points for the Bobcats (8-9, 1-2 Mid-American Conference).

Justin Greene paced the Golden Flashes (11-6, 2-1 MAC) with 18 points and eight boards, while Rodriguez Sherman scored 13 points.

With Kent State trailing by one, Carlton Guyton, in his return from a suspension, hit the game-winning free throws with 24 seconds remaining.

Baltic had the ball taken away in the post on Ohio’s next possession, and it led to a Sherman layup with 10 seconds to go.

Cooper pulled up from beyond the arc, and after a scramble for the rebound, he came back up with the ball in the backcourt and put up another try, but it was off the mark again.

“Coach talks to me after every game,” Cooper said. “Sometimes the ball isn’t going to go in. He’s behind me, regardless, and that gives me confidence.”

Kent State led by as many as eight early in the second half, but Ohio rallied and took a 64-61 lead on a Baltic jumper with 3:51 left on the block.

Despite giving up two offensive rebounds to Kent State on the next possession, Ohio got a stop and got an open 3-pont look for Freeman on the other end, but it was off the mark, and Greene got his team to within one with a pair of free throws.

Baltic scored again to push the lead back to three, but Eric Gaines answered for the Golden Flashes with a tip-in. Asown Sayles missed two free throws for Ohio with 1:23 remaining, and after a Kent State miss, Cooper missed a short jumper with 36 seconds to go, leading to Guyton’s free throws.

Kent State had a 42-30 advantage in points in the paint and a 14-7 edge in second-chance points.

The game was tied at 21 in the first half, but the Golden Flashes scored nine straight points to take control and held their biggest lead at 32-22.

Ohio trimmed its deficit to 32-26 before halftime and cut the Kent State lead down to two early in the second half before Kent State ran the lead back up to eight with 16:01 left in the game.

Washington gave Ohio a brief lead, 50-49, with 9:13 to go, and his dunk at the 5:58 mark put the Bobcats on top 58-57.

The Bobcats shot 47.1 percent from the floor, including 52.0 percent in the second half, while the Golden Flashes connected at a 46.4 percent clip, but at only 38.7 percent in the second half. They also were just 3 of 15 overall on 3-pointers.

“I thought we were really good defensively in the second half,” Groce said. “We didn’t give them anything easy. I thought our guys really battled and competed in the last 15 minutes of the game. But again, games are so close, you need 40 minutes of that. We’ve got to find a way to have that type of sense of urgency for 40 minutes rather than 15.”

Thirteen of the Golden Flashes’ offensive boards came after halftime.

“We’ve got to be tough,” Washington said. “We let them get a lot of offensive rebounds against us. That’s on us to be locked in and box out”

Next up for Ohio is a 7 p.m. game Wednesday against Bowling Green at Anderson Arena.