ATHENS, Ohio – Ohio dominated first-place Akron from start to finish, scoring an 85-61 victory Sunday night at The Convo.

The Bobcats led by 19 at the half, increased their advantage to as much as 33 and never trailed in their fourth straight victory and school record-breaking 16th home win.

D.J. Cooper posted a double-double with 11 points and 10 assists and was one of four Ohio players in double figures. Nick Kellogg had a game-high 17 and Walter Offutt and Reggie Keely each scored 14 as the Bobcats (23-6, 10-4 Mid-American Conference) shot 56.6 percent, including 68.2 percent in the second half.

“We played really well,” Ohio coach John Groce said. “I had a couple people ask me, ‘Is that as good as you can play?’ I certainly hope not. We’ve been focused on continuing to get better and that’s our mission. … I thought tonight we were able to impose our will. We played with a great amount of toughness.”

Brian Walsh had 12 and Nikola Cvetinovic 11 points for the Zips (20-9, 12-2 MAC), who made just 32.7 percent of their tries.

Offutt hit back-to-back 3-pointers for Ohio on their first two possessions, his second giving the Bobcats the lead for good, 6-3.

A run of six straight points, capped off by a Stevie Taylor steal and layup, made it 17-7.

After Ohio led by as many as 11 points, Akron closed to 21-15 on a Walsh layup at the 9:45 mark, but the Bobcats owned the next five minutes, outscoring the Zips 17-4.

It was 38-20 on a Zeke Marshall dunk at the 7:35 mark when Ohio went off for 10 straight points, with a pair of free throws by Cooper put the Bobcats on top 38-20.

Cvetinovic connected on a jumper to cut Akron’s deficit to 40-27, but Ohio scored the final six points of the half, with a pair of T.J. Hall layups included, to take a 46-27 lead into the locker room.

“We made a couple bad decisions, coming off Kellogg and things like that,” Akron coach Keith Dambrot said. “We were as bad mentally tonight as we were physically. … We tried to rest Marshall and (Alex) Abreu a little bit in the second half because at some point you realize you’re not going to win this one.”

Keely scored a layup at the 16:48 mark of the second half to make it 56-33 before the Zips came back with six straight points. That 17-point margin on two Marshall free throws with 15:18 remaining was as close as Akron got, however.

An 8-0 Ohio run blew open the game further with a TyQuane Goard dunk on an assist from Offutt making the score 69-41 midway through the second half.

The Bobcats reached their maximum lead, 79-46, on a coast-to-coast layup by Kellogg with 5:15 remaining.

This year’s version of the game in Athens was reminiscent of last year’s that saw the Bobcats take another blowout victory, 80-55. The Zips bounced back by claiming the MAC Tournament championship.

“After this meeting today, I’m not going to talk about it anymore. There’s no way you can take a whooping like that and make it a positive but you can use it as motivation to understand you have to play better than that.”

Ohio followed last year’s victory against Akron with a victory at regular season champion Kent State but lost its final game at Miami and then bowed out of the conference tournament with a quarterfinal loss to Ball State.

“We were in this position last year,” Groce said. “We played a really good game against Akron. These guys always want to play this time of year. We ended up going to Kent and winning at Kent and then the Miami game, I saw it in their eyes, they didn’t have it. That’s my fault. We’re going to change a couple things this year to make sure they have it.”

For the third straight game, the Bobcats topped 80 points. They made 9 of 21 (42.9 percent) 3-point tries, scored 32 points in the paint to the Zips 18 and had 16 fast-break points to six for Akron.

“We’re really focusing on pushing the ball a lot more,” Kellogg said. “Coach is really getting on us about getting stops, rebounding and running.”

In this year’s first-season meeting in Akron, Abreu got the better of Cooper, who struggled to a 2-of-13 shooting game. This time, Cooper was 3 of 7, while Abreu was 2 of 6 with two assists and four turnovers.

Dambrot said Abreu “has to play better” for the Zips to be effective, but said he did not expect Cooper to have another poor game.

“Scoring-wise he didn’t kill us,” Dambrot said. “He killed us passing the ball and stealing the ball and disrupting us offensively.”

While the result in Wednesday night’s 88-77 victory against Buffalo was good, the defense was lacking slightly, Groce said. Tonight was more of a complete effort.

“Tonight we got back to playing Ohio defense and what’s been our identity all year is that,” he said.

Ohio travels to Kent State for a 7 p.m. game Wednesday.