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MAC Tourney Quarterfinals Recap - Miami vs. Ohio

Live from press row in Quicken Loans Arena at the MAC Tournament in Cleveland, VanDelay Sports brings you our game recaps.

#5 Ohio 73, #4 Miami 58

For our recap of the games we're taking a look at the keys to victory that we identified in our game previews and providing a quick analysis of how each team delivered on those goals.

Miami keys to victory:

Get Peavy and Pollitz lots of touches inside, let the offense flow through them.
Exploit Ohio’s weakness at guarding the 3-pt line.
Force Troutman and Chatman to hit open shots.

OU Keys to Victory

Ball movement on offense
Stopping dribble penetration without too much help defense
Remembering to guard the 3

As predicted, Tim O'Shea and the Ohio Bobcats came into this game with an excellent game plan and OU executed on it from start to finish. It's routine for William Hatcher to play 40 minutes per game, but tonight OU wore him down making him work to get the ball across the timeline each possession. OU moved the ball very well on offense finding lots of open shots against a Miami defense that had held Ohio to 59 and 54 points in their first two meetings. The great Ohio ball movement was especially shown by Sonny Troutman and Antonio Chatman who had 6 and 7 assists respectively.

The Bobcats 3-pt defense held tough, as Miami only shot 6 of 18 from long distance. While Hatcher scored 22 points, Ohio kept Peavy and Pollitz under control with only 17 points combined from the dangerous duo. What really put the nail in Miami's coffin was their free throw shooting tonight. Not only did the RedHawks only shoot 50% from the line, but 2 or 3 of those misses came on the front-end of one-and-one opportunities. Some key stats from this game:

3-point shooting %: OU/MU - 56%/33%
Assists: OU/MU - 16/8
Free throws: OU/MU - 13-15/6-12
Sonny Troutman - 15 points, 6 assists, 3 steals

Final Thoughts
Ohio really won this game from start to finish. Their dominance from wire-to-wire was impressive, and surprising to me, who said if this game ended up being a blowout, it would be a Miami win. If Ohio can play a complete game again like it did tonight, they could take down Kent State in the early game on Friday. It's going to take another total game with ball movement, 3-pt defense, and pressure on the ball handler to do it though.

By Dan Whitmyer, VanDelaySports.com Head Basketball Writer

published 03.09.06

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What are they putting in the water at Kent State?