Ohio tops YSU on buzzer-beater
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YOUNGSTOWN -- As the buzzer sounded, Ohio's Dwight Wilson laid back on the baseline as his teammates poured off the bench and dogpiled onto him. All Youngstown State's players could do was return to their bench in disbelief.
The Penguins fell to the visiting Bobcats in heartbreaking fashion Sunday at the Beeghly Center, as Wilson sank a contested, buzzer-beating layup to down YSU 81-79.
"You just have to take this one on the chin," YSU guard Brandon Rush said. "Tough loss, and a lot of tough life lessons. It teaches you a lot about who you are as a player, who you are as a person. So we have to go into practice the next couple of days and just get after it so we don't have to go through something like this ever again."
Ohio (5-4) led 79-76 in the game's waning seconds before Dwayne Cohill drilled a contested 3-pointer with 3 seconds remaining. On the ensuing inbound, the Bobcats heaved the ball to half court, where the Penguins (7-4) deflected it out of bounds with 1.4 seconds remaining on the clock.
On the next inbound, Wilson started on the left end of the foul line and set a screen for teammate DeVon Baker underneath the basket. On the screen, two Penguins switched.
But on the switch, Wilson was able to front Rush in the post, and collected the inbound from Ben Roderick. Despite Rush's best efforts to contest the shot, Wilson was able to get the layup attempt off in time. As the horn sounded, the ball rattled around the rim before gravitating back into the basket at the last possible moment.
"We were told to switch every screen that happened. ... The switch guy dug me in, the bigger guy dug me in, and I tried to wall up and not foul," Rush said.
YSU coach Jerrod Calhoun added, "I haven't seen the play (on replay), so I'm not 100 percent sure what happened, but I think we switched and got buried. When you're switching on defense, you're supposed to switch and stay in front of the guy. He's 280 pounds, so you can't get caught behind. We kind of knew the play was coming. I think that's the most frustrating thing on our side."
In many aspects, though, the Penguins were fortunate even to be in position to force overtime. Ohio spent the entire first half and the early portions of the second imposing its will with a physical style of play that yielded a 44-31 halftime advantage that grew to 47-31 after a Baker triple just 21 seconds into the second half.
Meanwhile, the Penguins were having trouble matching that physicality. YSU was outrebounded 25-13 in the first half and outscored 26-16 in the paint. The Bobcats also scored eight second-chance points. When Youngstown State managed to get the ball down low, it often had trouble finishing. The Penguins shot just 11-for-36 in the first half.
"We missed tons of layups," Calhoun said. "I think we shot 30 percent or something (in the first half), so we were really lucky to be in it, to be honest."
Paced by Rush, the Penguins were able to rally back into the mix with a 20-5 run. Rush sank three shots from 3-point range during the spurt, the last of which brought YSU to within 52-51 at the 13:27 mark. Rush finished with a game-high 26 points and added four steals.
And as the Penguin offense woke up, so did the defense. YSU was able to get stops, and finished possessions by controlling the boards during that stretch to claw back into the game.
"We started to realize that we wanted it more. We can't just come out thinking we're the better team all the time," Rush said. "We have to come out and actually be the better team, and we started off slow. It wasn't how we thought we were going to start off."
From there, the battle was on. Neither team seized more than a six-point lead the rest of the game. Ohio took that advantage -- a 71-65 lead -- with 6:34 to play. The Penguins answered with an 8-1 run capped by a Malek Green fast-break layup to take a 73-72 lead. Green scored 16 points and had 10 rebounds.
Green tied it up at 75 a possession later on a jumper in the paint, and then Adrian Nelson gave YSU a 76-75 lead -- its last of the game -- after splitting a pair of free throws.
Ohio took a 77-76 advantage on a Wilson layup on a second-chance opportunity, and then pushed it to 79-76 after free throws by AJ Brown. The Bobcats could have put away the game with seven seconds to go as AJ Clayton had a 1-and-1 opportunity, but he missed the front end, which resulted in Cohill's subsequent game-tying shot.
Cohill had 16 points and nine assists. Bryce McBride added 10 points and four rebounds. For Ohio, Jaylin Hunter had 17 points and seven assists, and AJ Brown had 16 points. Baker added 15 points, while Wilson and Clayton each scored 10.
Youngstown State is back in action Friday against Southern.
"We have to have a little more humility at practice," Calhoun concluded. "We have to have a little more attention to details. That starts with us (as coaches), and we'll get that fixed here real soon."
jwhetzel@tribtoday.com