1. Ohio entered the game 12-1, with their only loss having occurred at Louisville by 5 points. They’d beaten both Marshall and Northern Iowa on the road. This was the 2nd season in a row that Ohio faced Robert Morris in their 14th game of the season. Ohio lost that game as well, but last year it pushed their record to 7-7. Robert Morris has now beaten Ohio in three straight seasons.
2. Robert Morris turned the ball over 31 times in a 75 possession game. They entered the game with clear ball control issues, and had turned it over on 22% of their trips. Against Ohio they nearly doubled that, turning the ball over on 41.3% of their possessions and are now 276th in that category. This left 44 possessions with opportunities to score, and they averaged 1.59 per effective possession (ie, no turnover). Ohio had 62 effective possessions, and in those scored 1.08 per trip, or 47% less than Robert Morris.
3. DJ Cooper is a fantastic guard, and he might be on the All Under-6′ team, but a 3-pt shooter he is not. It’s a good thing he attempted 12 against Robert Morris. His 2 makes gave him a 16.6% 3-pt rate for the day, but didn’t drop his season average all that much. Cooper entered shooting 27.4% and exited shooting 25.8%. Perhaps a guard who shoots 48% on 2s and 26% on 3s might want to focus a bit more of his energies inside the arc.
4. Ohio’s Stevie Taylor (43% from 3) and Nick Kellogg (49%) attempted four 3-pointers. DJ Cooper (26%) attempted twelve, and TJ Hall (29%) attempted seven. As a team they made 3-26, or 11.5%. Their final attempt rimmed out, unsurprisingly, and it would have sent the game to overtime.
5. Ohio grabbed 16 offensive boards, but they had 44 misses to pick from. For the game their offensive rebounding rate was 36%, which is exactly their season average. Robert Morris grabbed 11 of their own 22 misses (50%) which isn’t at all surprising considering they are the 6th best offensive rebounding team in the nation (42.1%).
