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Ivo Baltic, guarded by Nick Winbush, led Oho with 18 points. Below, Josh Sewell makes a drive. Bottom left, Julian Mavunga stretches for a pass. Photos by Mike Smith.

Miami’s arch-rival came into Friday’s matchup riding a five-game win streak and had won seven of the last eight. The RedHawks, on the other hand, were coming off a setback at Buffalo Wednesday. That loss meant MU needed to beat Ohio and hope Kent State lost against arch-rival Akron. That scenario would have given Miami a piece of the MAC East regular season title.

Ultimately, Kent State defeated Akron to claim the East crown, but Miami, nonetheless, relished a victory to complete a season marked by challenges.

RESILIENT REDHAWKS
“I think our guys have been pretty resilient all year,” said RedHawks head coach Charlie Coles, who credited the seniors, in particular. “This was the best leadership we’ve had since (Wally) Szczerbiak and (Damon) Frierson were here.”

Senior Nick Winbush scored all 14 of his points in the first half as Miami built a 36-26 lead. That 10-point advantage matched the final difference as both teams scored 40 points in the second half.

Among Winbush’s five field goals before intermission were two treys. That was two more threes than the Bobcats managed. Ohio was 0-for-5 behind the arc and 8-of-23 (34.8 percent) overall before the break. The visitors, who entered the game with a MAC-best 47.3 percent FG success rate, connected on 37.7 percent from the field for the game.

“It’s hard to win on the road when you shoot 38 percent from the field,” OU head coach John Groce said. “For the most part, we got pretty decent shots.”

BALTIC LEADS BOBCATS
Bobcats sophomore forward Ivo Baltic took advantage of the looks he either got or made, hitting 6-of-12 from the field and 6-of-7 from the line on the way to a team-high 18 points.
“He’s a really good player,” Winbush said.

D.J. Cooper (14), Tommy Freeman (13) and DeVaughn Washington (12) joined Baltic in double figures.

Coles noted Freeman is a dangerous shooter – particularly behind the arc – and has traditionally performed well against Miami. The 6-5 senior forward made 2-of-9 (both treys) Friday. “We’re never going to catch Tommy Freeman like we did tonight,” Coles said. “I’ve very seldom seen him miss open looks.”

The veteran coach was also pleased in how his team handled Bobcats point guard D.J. Cooper. The dynamic sophomore went 4-for-13 from the field with four assists and five turnovers.

'Q' FACTOR
One of the RedHawks drawing Cooper as an assignment was Quinten Rollins. The freshman, who missed nearly a month of the season due to injury, was questionable for Friday’s game. But after getting a foot taped, Rollins not only brought his defensive skills to 33 minutes of action, he hit 4-of-5 from the field on the way to a 15-point night.

He’s such a game-changer. He did a great job today,” said senior forward Sean Mock, an Oxford native who played in his final home game. “He really did such a great job on D.J. Cooper. I don’t know if we really realize how good he is.”

“Rollins is a terrific defender,” Groce observed.

“Quinten adds defense to our game, and if we can get him to be more of an offensive presence, (it will add another weapon),” Coles said.

“I’ve been struggling knocking down the open shot,” Rollins said. “I hit that first one, and I think that started to open up my drives.”

Miami forward Julian Mavunga, who Coles considers a very strong MAC Player of the Year candidate, ended up with a game-high 23 points after netting just one field goal and four points before intermission. “I was taking some off balance shots,” Mavunga said of his first half performance. “They just told me (I’ve) got to go with less finesse and more power in the second half.”

Getting back to basics, Mavunga made 3-of-4 in the second half. He also made it to the charity stripe for 15 free throws after the break, sinking 13.

“You can’t foul (him), Groce said. “You’ve got to play harder (to defend and yet) not to foul.”

Groce noted the RedHawks had a huge rebound advantage (43-29) in a 92-88 triple-overtime victory by Miami January 9. The RedHawks still had the services of senior Antonio Ballard at that time. He registered 12 boards and had a game-high 26 points. Five games later, he was lost for the season due to a wrist injury. Whether it was the lack of Ballard’s rebounding or other factors, Ohio was just one rebound short (35-34) of the RedHawks in caroms this time.

“This was a lot different than the first time,” Groce said.

MAKING THE MOST OF OPPORTUNITIES
More important were free throws. Miami made 30-of-33 tosses (90.0 percent) in the contest. Ohio converted 22-of-29. Both teams went into the bonus relatively early in the second half and eventually hit double-bonus.

The RedHawks netted 24 of their 40 second half points at the line as Ohio tried to cut into a double digit lead. But after pulling within six on a pair of  Freeman free throws at 16:44, the Bobcats soon found themselves trailing by a dozen. Miami had its largest lead, 16 points, after a pair of Josh Sewell free throws with 9:00 remaining. Ohio finally got the deficit into single digits on a Nick Kellogg trey with 20 seconds left.

“They were probably tougher than us for the bulk of the 40 minutes,” said Groce, who noted his team was coming off three tough games (wins over Bowling Green, Kent State and Akron) in six days. “We just didn’t have it (tonight). We didn’t have the energy level and pop.”

Miami, meanwhile, was coming off a Wednesday game at Buffalo, where they not only shot a paltry 33 percent from the field, but also registered just four points at the free throw line in a 59-49 loss.They bumped it up to 40 percent – both from the floor and from behind the arc -  against Ohio.

COLES CALLS IT BEST YET
With his team getting to the line more and improving defensively, Coles said, “That was probably our best game – from start to finish – that we played all year, because it was a Miami game. We kind of had the tempo, and we were able to play some defense tonight.

Despite the Bobcats bump in the bricks of Oxford, both Coles and Groce agreed that the Bobcats are once again a team to be reckoned with in a wide-open MAC tournament during the coming week.

“This loss will certainly humble us and, hopefully, give us more of an edge (heading into the tournament),” said Groce, whose team ran the table at last year’s MAC tourney and added a win over Georgetown in the NCAA tournament.

“That (MAC) tournament ought to be something special,” Coles said. “You can’t pick a winner now.”