ATHENS, Ohio – Ohio built a lead as big as 29 points in the second half and held off Tennessee-Martin down the stretch in a season-opening 74-65 victory at The Convo on Sunday afternoon.

The Bobcats led 60-31 with 14:30 remaining on a Stevie Taylor 3-pointer, but the Skyhawks outscored them 34-14 the rest of the way to make it somewhat close down the stretch.

Ohio State transfer Walter Offutt led the way with 17 points in his first regular season game for Ohio, and Reggie Keely added 16 points. D.J. Cooper scored 12 points and dished out 10 assists.

UT-Martin freshman Jeremy Washington came off the bench to score 17 points and grab nine rebounds, Mike Liabo had 16 points and Myles Taylor posted a double-double with 11 points and 10 boards.

“Obviously it was a tale of two different halves,” Ohio coach John Groce said. “I thought in the first half, we imposed our well. I felt like we were the toughest, most aggressive team in the first half, and then for the majority of the second half, I felt like they were.”

Ohio forced 23 turnovers, including 15 in the first half, leading to 35 points off turnovers. It was a big key in building a 40-21 advantage at the break.

Four more turnovers in the first six minutes of the second half helped the Bobcats continue to put out their lead. Jon Smith scored on an offensive rebound and Offutt got a layup off of a steal for a 55-27 advantage.

Later, a Keely dunk put the Bobcats up 28, and after Troy king answered with a jumper, Taylor’s 3-pointer gave the Bobcats their biggest lead of the game at 29 points.

But Ohio had trouble closing out UT-Martin the rest of the way.

“We’ve got to give them a lot of credit,” Offutt said. “They didn’t crack. They kept playing hard. We have to continue to go out and we push ourselves. We have to want to continue to get stops and do that. We have to mix in a little bit of aggressiveness.”

A Washington layup off of an offensive board capped off a run of 15 straight Skyhawks points, cutting their deficit to 60-46 with 8:10 remaining.

Ivo Baltic hit a pair of free throws to finally end the UT-Martin scoring streak and Offutt added a free throw to put the lead back up to 17 at the 6:29 mark.

A Cooper jumper put the Bobcats’ advantage back at 19 with 3:48 to go, but the Skyhawks responded by reeling off 10 more points in a row to make it 68-59 with 1:20 remaining.

Keely, though, got a quick layup and Ohio made enough free throws down the stretch to keep UT-Martin from getting any closer than eight.

“I didn’t think our defense was very good late,” Groce said. “We didn’t give them much resistance. Our loss of focus there late in the game both offensively and defensively, we’ve got to get better. I’m disappointed we didn’t play a 40-minute game, but I’m also fully aware it’s November the 13th.”

Although Ohio’s play was disappointing the last 15 minutes, it was impressive the first 25.

An active defense limited UT-Martin to just 14 field goal attempts with just five makes in the first half.

Offutt came up with a steal on the game’s opening possession and then hit a 3-pointer to start the season out the right way.

With the lead at 5-4, Ohio got a Taylor trey that ignited a 12-0 run, with a Ricardo Johnson free throw after an offensive rebounding make the score 17-4.

Cooper drilled a 3-pointer to give the Bobcats their biggest lead, 26-7, and he drove to the hoop for a layup to end the half to put his team back up 19 at the break.

Ohio’s strong play continued for the first five and a half minutes of the second half with an offensive outburst of 20 quick points.

“We did some good things,” Groce said. “We ran the ball well in transition. I thought we were unselfish. I thought we were really pushing the pace. I thought we did a really good job on the glass in the first half. We did some good things. We’re certainly not going to neglect those, but these guys have higher aspirations and so do I. We have higher standards.”

Offutt went 6 of 13 from the field and the Bobcats shot 44.7 percent from the field as a team. Keely was 7 of 11.

However, several Ohio players struggled. Baltic was just 1 of 3 and scored six points, but did have nine rebounds in 24 minutes. Cooper was 4 of 13, Taylor was 2 of 9 and Nick Kellogg was just 1 of 4 for four points.

A key issue for the Bobcats’ post players was foul trouble. Smith and TyQuane Goard both fouled out while playing only 15 minutes.

“We’ve got to play hard without fouling and we did a little bit better with that in the second half, but we’ve got to play somewhere around 18 fouls or less for us to reach our potential,” Groce said. “Defensively tonight we had 24 and that’s just too many.”

A positive for Ohio is it gets a chance to correct its error soon, having just one day off before returning to The Convo’s hardwood against Lamar.

“I’m anxious to see if we can play more of a complete game Tuesday night,” Groce said. “It’s going to be the goal. That’s what we’re going to be talk about more than what Lamar does or doesn’t do. It’s going to be more about us and can we play more of a complete basketball game on Tuesday night than we did today.”

Tipoff against the Cardinals is set for 7 p.m.