 Ohio coach John Groce said his team is playing its best basketball of the season and he felt going into Thursday's game that his team had a pretty good chance to beat Georgeotown. MRO file photo. "Obviously (I'm) really proud of our team, and we've worked really hard the last few days to execute the game plan, and they bought in 110 percent," Ohio head coach John Groce said. "I thought of really being mentally and physically prepared to play, and we knew we were going to have to do that because we were playing such a great Georgetown team."
With the win, Ohio advances to take on sixth-seeded Tennessee in second round action Saturday at 3:35 p.m. (ET).
Ohio's Armon Bassett led all scorers with 32 points on 9-17 shooting. D.J. Cooper chipped in 23 points and a game-high eight assists and three steals on 8-12 shooting and 5-8 from 3-point range. DeVaughn Washington added a double-double with 12 points and 10 boards, while Kenneth van Kempen had 11.
Ohio connected on an astounding 13 of 23 3-point attempts (56.5 percent) and 58.2 percent (32-55) of its field goal attempts as a whole.
"We just step up if we're open and just take the shot with confidence and knock it down," said Cooper, who belied his freshman status. "My guys and coach Groce did a great job of ... putting confidence in me. If I get rattled or anything, they just give me encouragement," Cooper said.
Georgetown was led by Chris Wright's 28 points, while Greg Monroe had 19 points and 13 boards to go with six assists. Hollis Thompson added 16, while Jason Clark had three steals.
"I told the guys before the game, we weren't going to stop (Monroe). He's a really good player. He's a mismatch problem," Groce said. "Basically in our game play, we want to do some tings - double him some, sometimes we didn't.
We tried to keep him off balance a little bit and keep him guessing."
Ohio jumped out to a quick six-point lead and held off Georgetown until the Hoyas took their first lead at 13-11 on a 3-pointer by Hollis Thompson at the 12:47 mark. The Bobcats took the lead back (17-15) on a jumper by Kenneth van Kempen just under two minutes later. After a Wright 3-pointer, the Bobcats closed the last nine and a half minutes by outscoring their Big East foes 31-18 on the strength of six 3-pointers.
"I was hoping (the trey) would be (a factor). "It's been that for us all year," said Groce, whose team led the MAC in 3-point field goal percentage the last two seasons. "It's kind of something we do. Did I know we were going to go 13 for 23 ... and shoot 71 percent from the three in the second half? No. (But) I had a lot of confidence in our guys. They shot them all year, and I know the guys that shoot them expect them to go in."
Bassett led all first-half scorers with 17 points, while DeVaughn Washington had eight points and eight rebounds. Cooper had four first-half assists. Georgetown's Chris Wright had 16 points, while Greg Monroe had 10 points and five boards on 5-6 shooting from the field.
Ohio built its first-half advantage on a 16-5 edge in second chance points and actually outrebounded the bigger Hoyas 18-16. The Bobcats finished the half shooting a blistering 50 percent (8-16) from long range.
Ohio didn't cool off in the second half, making 66.7 percent of its shots en route to a 19-point lead (63-44) with 13:13 left on a Freeman jumper. Georgetown cut the lead to seven (81-74) on an Austin Freeman jumper with 4:55 left but Ohio made all 10 of its free throws down the stretch to emerge with the win.
"We kept our feet on the ground, and we pulled it out," said Bassett, who continued to shine after a MVP performance in the MAC tournament last week. "I mean half of the battle is having confidence in yourself," said the 6-2 junior transfer from Indiana. "I have a coach that has great confidence in me and my teammates, and I'm just out there playing my role.
"My hats are off to the guys," Groce said. "I always say this time of the year the most aggressive team and the team that has the players that make plays (wins), and, obviously, we had a lot of them made by a lot of different guys on a lot of different occasions during the game. I thought (that) was the difference."
"A lot of people throughout the year kind of doubted us, but I feel like for us as a team, we kept confidence in our self," van Kempen said. "We kept working hard so that it pays off right now as a great experience."
Courtesy of OU Athletics
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