Men's Basketball vs. Ohio 2/6/13 from Ball State Student Media on Vimeo.
After picking up an offensive foul late in the first half, Jesse Berry walked to the end of the bench and hit a chair so hard it flipped over.
The junior guard had just committed Ball State’s 14th turnover to equal the entire scoring output for the Cardinals heading into halftime.
Berry’s frustration was just a microcosm of the psychological blow Ohio’s superior athleticism and swarming defense seemed to have on the entire team in the first 20 minutes.
“They didn’t come out with no pop,” Ohio redshirt senior guard Walter Offutt said. “I thought they would since they’d be at home. Coming off a loss, early on, I thought we’d get a little more bounce back from them.”
Ball State’s (8-13, 2-7 MAC) second-half energy did little to improve the deficit as the team lost 69-42 to Ohio (16-6, 7-1 MAC) on Wednesday.
The Cardinals’ 22 turnovers, 26.5 percent shooting (13-of-49) from the field and 42 points were all season highs, or lows depending on how you look at it.
Ball State’s lone double-figure scorer, senior guard Jauwan Scaife, finished with 18 points, but struggled to remember the last time scoring was so hard in the postgame press conference.
Perhaps that was because Offutt—who finished with a team-high 17 points—and the rest of the Bobcats blitzed every offensive set the Cardinals ran based on the defensive gameplan from coach Jim Christian.
“It starts with trying to take Majok out as best as we can by double teaming him to try and make him a passer,” Christian said. “Then we had to put some pressure on their guards to push them out because if they get the ball in the interior they’re pretty good. We were able to shoot some gaps and get some steals, which pushed them out further.”
Ball State’s offense operated primarily 3-point line and out in the first 20 minutes and Ohio went on a 16-3 run to start the game.
Majok and Berry, two of the Cardinals top-three scorers, combined for zero points in the first half on 0-of-6 shooting. The team didn’t reach double figures until the 6:28 mark of the first half, resulting in a 34-14 halftime deficit.
Such poor offensive efficiency makes one wonder what was the game plan for the Cardinals?
“We were trying to cut off screens hard and get into the heart of the defense,” Scaife said. “If we don’t have anything then we go into Majok. We wanted to move and play off of him.”
Ball State tried to make that happen, but Ohio’s defense was so good on the ball and in ball screens that the team was often forced to jack up wild attempts to beat the shot clock.
Majok scored a season-low three points on just four shots, while Berry’s first bucket didn’t come until the 5:29 mark in the second half. He finished tied for a season-low with three points as well.
While it was easy to see what was going wrong in Wednesday’s game, players and coach Billy Taylor struggled to find answers moving forward.
“These guys have worked so hard on the floor in practice, in preparation, and to see us come out and not perform is tough to swallow,” Taylor said. “We’ve got guys that are a lot better than that in the locker room—capable of much better. We just didn’t get it [done].”
