ATHENS, Ohio – Mid-American Conference regular season championships do not come often – or easy.

Stevie Taylor and Jon Smith came off the bench to spark a 15-0 run that rallied the Bobcats from a 12-point second-half deficit and to a 58-54 victory Saturday against last-place rival Miami to clinch Ohio’s first regular season MAC title since 1994.

On the Bobcats’ Senior Day at The Convo, D.J. Cooper had 17 points, but only two assists while shifting over to shooting guard for much of the second half. Smith had all nine of his points in the second half and finished with 10 rebounds, while Taylor had five of his eight points and all three of his steals after the break.

Will Felder led the RedHawks (8-21, 3-13 MAC) with 20 points. Jon Harris had 13 points and nine boards.

Despite two losses to Akron, Ohio (23-8, 14-2 MAC) tied for first place for its 10th all-time regular season conference championship after the Zips dropped two of their last three games.

“First and foremost, it’s a great accomplishment,” Ohio coach Jim Christian said. “I have so much respect for the league. I know how hard it is to do. … There’s a big difference between expectation level and accomplishment. … What this team accomplished was really unprecedented in the league.”

Ohio has won two of the last three tournament championships and has gone on to win three NCAA Tournament games. Until the final 12 minutes, it seemed like the regular season MAC title might again elude the Bobcats.

Geovonie McKnight split a pair of free throws to put Miami up 44-32 at the 11:58 mark of the second half, but 14 seconds later, Taylor connected on a 3-pointer that began the Bobcats' comeback.

After a turnover, Smith came up with a four-point play by tipping in a missed shot while being fouled and then tipping in his own missed free throw after it took a high bounce off the rim.

“In the first half, I touched a lot of balls, but I wasn’t really doing anything,” Smith said. “Coach in the locker room was just like, ‘Play.’ I just went out and didn’t think. I just tried to have a high motor.”

Walter Offutt drove the baseline for a layup, and after a Cooper steal, Smith made a free throw to make it a two-point game. Taylor came up with back-to-back steals, leading first to his own game-tying layup and then to a Cooper 3-pointer that made it 47-44 in favor of the Bobcats with 7:04 remaining.

“I feel like that’s my role on the team,” Taylor said. “I just did my role tonight. I wanted to send the seniors out on a good note and I wanted the championship so bad, I wanted to do whatever I could.”

Will Sullivan gave Miami its first points in five and a half minutes with a putback layup. Smith, though, answered with two free throws, and after a Harris jumper, Ivo Baltic pushed Ohio’s advantage to 52-48 with a 3-pointer.

Following a Felder basket, Baltic rebounded his own missed jumper and dished inside to Smith to make it a four-point game again. Harris got a layup and the RedHawks failed to convert on two possessions in which they could have tied or taken the lead.

T.J. Hall put back a missed Nick Kellogg 3-pointer with 1:18 left to make it 56-52 before Felder answered with two free throws with 57 seconds to go. Kellogg pump faked a defender and stepped up to knock down an open jumper, pushing Ohio’s lead back to two possessions. Miami was blocked and then finally turned it over and the final six seconds ran off.

“We broke down particularly on the offensive end in the second half and then with turnovers,” Miami coach John Cooper said. “We certainly didn’t shoot well in the second half and that’s always going to come back and grab you. I thought our guys competed, but it’s just been one of those kinds of years.”

Ohio was just 6 of 32 (18.8 percent) in the first half, and while Miami (37.9 percent) did not shoot well, the RedHawks built a 28-22 lead by the half.

The Bobcats took an early 7-2 lead on a Baltic jumper, but they went just 3 of 27 the rest of the first half. Despite the cold shooting, Ohio knocked down foul shots to go up 15-9 at the 9:39 mark and it still led as late as the 5:26 mark on a Cooper jumper that made it 20-19.

Felder hit a 3-pointer that jumpstarted a 9-2 Miami run to close out the first half, with Ohio scoring only two free throws in that span, including one by Cooper with .4 second left after he tried to put back a missed jumper.

Momentum stayed with the RedHawks well into the second half. The Bobcats got to within five on a Reggie Keely three-point play, but Miami went on another 9-2 run, going up 41-29 on a Reggie Johnson fast-break jumper at the 14:26 mark. The teams traded points for the next two and a half minutes.

“Senior Night, you just never really know,” Christian said. “… You never know how seniors are going to react. I think it kind of drained us. We came out a little bit flat. The first half, we didn’t play well at all. … Then we showed courage the last 12 minutes of the game, tried a bunch of different combinations just to find one, and then we played D.J. and Stevie together and Jon gave us a ridiculous lift off the bench.”

Ohio shot just 31.7 percent for the game, but rebounded to make 46.4 percent of its second-half tries. The Bobcats forced 15 turnovers, including 10 in the second half, resulting in an 18-2 disparity in points off turnovers.

The Bobcats finished with 14 offensive rebounds and had more second-chance points, 12-4. Smith had six offensive boards.

“We were much more aggressive on the defensive end in the second half,” Christian said. “We made some off-the-ball steals. We had 14 offensive rebounds, and to me, that’s what won the game.”

Seniors Cooper, Baltic, Keely, Offutt and David McKinley started. Christian said he planned to start senior Nick Goff, who has another year of eligibility but plans to graduate this spring, in the second half but was not able to because of the deficit.

As the No. 2 seed in the MAC Tournament, Ohio earned a bye into the semifinals.

“(The regular season championship) feels good because it’s a goal accomplished but we’ve got more goals,” Smith said. “We celebrate tonight but tomorrow it’s on to the tourney.”

No. 3 seed Western Michigan has a bye into Thursday’s quarterfinals on the Ohio side of the bracket. Among the teams the Broncos could play are No. 6 Bowling Green, No. 7 Eastern Michigan, No. 10 Northern Illinois and No. 11 Miami, depending on the outcome of games Monday and Wednesday.

Ohio’s semifinal game is set for approximately 9 p.m. Friday at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.