ATHENS, Ohio – Tommy Freeman hit seven of Ohio’s 12 made 3-pointers as the Bobcats held a double-digit lead throughout most of the game in a 71-58 victory against Toledo on Wednesday night at The Convo.

Freeman finished with 21 points, while Ivo Baltic and DeVaughn Washington scored 16 and 14 points, respectively, filling the void of D.J. Cooper who missed most of the second half with an ankle sprain.

Malcolm Griffin led four Toledo players in double-figures with 16 points, but he also had seven of his team’s 18 turnovers.

While the Bobcats (12-12, 5-5 Mid-American Conference) made 12 of 27 3-pointers and shot 47.4 percent overall, the Rockets were just 5 of 20 beyond the arc and shot 42.6 percent.

“Definitely teams are having to pick their poison,” Freeman said. “The Northern (Illinois) game really showed what will happen if teams play the perimeters and we can get it inside and get our big men to work. They’re really talented one-on-one players that can create their own shots. Tonight the bigs did a great job of adjusting to the game plan and we knew they were going to come with the post trap so the bigs did a really good job of finding shooters on the perimeter.”

Freeman connected on the game’s opening basket and Ohio never trailed. A Griffin 3-pointer cut Toledo’s deficit to three midway through the first half, but the Bobcats scored nine straight points, capped off by a Freeman trey.

The Rockets (4-20, 1-9 MAC) closed to within seven before Freeman and T.J. Hall hit back-to-back 3-pointers for a 36-23 edge at the break.

Cooper, though, left the game at the 1:23 mark, returned to start the second half, but came out for good two minutes later.

Even without Cooper, Ohio’s lead grew to 20 at 60-40 on a Baltic layup that capped off a 7-0 run. Washington scored a layup with 6:12 remaining for a 24-point Bobcats lead.

The Rockets cut the margin in half with 12 straight points in three minutes, but Freeman put an end to the run with his final 3-pointer.

Nick Kellogg had a career-high six assists and five steals and made three treys to finish with nine points. The nation’s leader in assists, Cooper had five of them in 16 minutes, but only had two points on 1 of 4 shooting.

“I thought he did a pretty good job,” Ohio coach John Groce said. “I thought a couple of times late — and he and I talked about this — he maybe could have adjusted the time and score a little bit better but overall, six assists, two turnovers, five steals; he had a lot of the responsibility on Malcolm Griffin early and I thought T.J. did a pretty good job picking up the slack there on him once Nick got into foul trouble. … He had a lot on his plate tonight and I really liked the way he responded.”

Freeman and Baltic tied for the team lead in rebounds with five, while Baltic had a career-best four assists. Hall also had four assists to go with eight points.

Justin Anijong had a game-high six rebounds to go with 11 points for Toledo. Jay Shunnar and Reese Holliday scored 13 and 11 points, respectively.

Ohio scored 10 second-chance points on its six offensive rebounds, while Toledo had only two points on five offensive boards. The Bobcats, who had 10 turnovers, had a 22-15 advantage on points off turnovers.

“It’s a good sign when your basketball team is able to recognize that and move the ball and have no ego, throw it to the hot hand or maybe take advantage of the way they’re playing something,” Groce said. “We’ve done that two games in a row and I think that’s a good thing for us offensively. We’ve just got to keep building our defense at this point.”

A 4 p.m. game Saturday at Western Michigan caps off the Bobcats’ schedule against Western Division foes.