Ohio women's basketball falls in MAC title game
By Michael Weisman, Senior Sports Writer
March 20, 2008 | 11:40 a.m.
After the Ohio women’s basketball team advanced to its first Mid-American Conference final since 1986, the Bobcats came up a bit short, falling to Miami University 67-56 Saturday afternoon at Quicken Loans Arena.
The two teams battled back and forth, trading buckets for the first 28 minutes of the game, with no team holding a lead bigger than five. However, with the game tied at 41 and 11:50 remaining, Miami would go on an 11-0 run, as Ohio went just under five minutes without scoring. The Bobcats made a run at the RedHawks but could get no closer than six.
“I told our players to hold their heads up high today because I’m extremely proud of what [the players] accomplished this year. Ohio hadn’t been to the [MAC] championship game in [22] years,” said Ohio coach Sylvia Crawley, who has led the Bobcats to back-to-back winning seasons in her first two seasons in Athens after Ohio hadn’t had a winning season in eight prior seasons.
Coming into the game it was clear Miami had the height advantage, with no starter under 5-feet-7-inches and two starters over six feet tall. Ohio, on the other hand, had two starters under 5-feet-5-inches and only one six-footer. The RedHawks made sure to use that height to their advantage.
Miami out-rebounded Ohio by eight but had 17 offensive rebounds (to Ohio’s eight), which they converted into 21 second-chance points. The ’Hawks also used their size to pave the way for 26 points in the paint, where the Bobcats only managed to score 12 points.
“I thought definitely rebounds were the difference in the game,” Crawley said. “I thought that’s what worked well for us in the Bowling Green [semifinal] game and we went away from that in this game and that hurt us.”
A day earlier, Ohio won a hard-fought, double-overtime semifinal game against MAC regular season champion Bowling Green 68-66, to advance to the championship game. In that game, Bobcat senior Lauren Kohn, who led Ohio in scoring and was second in the conference with 17.1 points per game in MAC play, went 0-8 and did not score, making the win that much more improbable.
The Bobcats had to beat Central Michigan and Eastern Michigan to advance to the semifinals, where they knocked off the Falcons. Since March began, Ohio played seven games in 15 days, going 5-2 with both losses coming at the hands of Miami.
“I don’t think that physical fatigue had anything to do with the [championship] game,” Kohn said. “I think we had a lot of mental lapses. We weren’t mentally focused at times. Miami, you got to hand it to them. They did a good job of exploiting those mental weaknesses.”
Kohn, a First-Team All-MAC selection, looked as though she would make up for her rough shooting night against Bowling Green, starting the MAC championship game 4-4 for 10 points. However, Miami would hold her scoreless the remainder of the game.
Kohn’s fellow First-Team All-MAC honoree and Miami senior Amanda Jackson, who led the MAC in scoring at more than 20 points per game, paced Miami with 19 points and was named MAC Tournament Most Valuable Player. Ohio’s Jenny Poff and Lauren Hmiel joined Jackson on the All-Tournament Team.
The Bobcats finished the season 20-13, accumulating the third-most wins in a single season in Ohio women’s basketball history. The 20 wins were the most since Ohio won 23 games in the 1994-1995 season.
“I’ve seen a shift in the mentality of these players,” Crawley said. “I’ve seen them go from, ‘Oh, I hope we beat [Bowling Green]’ to ‘I know we’re going to beat BG’ or ‘I know we’re going to beat whatever opponent we’re playing.’ That is a transformation in mentality.”
Crawley hopes to continue to build on the team’s winning ways and make a return trip to the title game next season.
“I had our underclassmen go out and watch the [championship] ceremony a little bit,” said Crawley, who was a Final Four MVP on the 1993-1994 North Carolina national championship team. “I explained to them it was not as a punishment, but I wanted them to see what happens after a championship. I wanted them to see the hats and the T-shirts so that they would make it up in their mind that next year that would be them.”
Ohio still has hopes to make postseason play this year for the first time since 1995, when the Bobcats went to the NCAA Tournament, as the team could get an invitation to the inaugural Women’s National Invitational Championship. Crawley said she expects to hear an announcement on postseason play Tuesday after the women’s National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament field is announced, along with the Women’s National Invitation Tournament field.
“I’m trying to rebuild a program and postseason play is a necessity,” Crawley said.
---