Box Score
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio – The Cardinal men's basketball team picked up an 82-76 win over the No. 5 seed John Carroll University Tuesday night in the opening round of the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) Tournament.
The win advances Otterbein University (8-18) to the next round where they will meet No. 4 seed University of Mount Union for an 8 p.m. tip tomorrow night in Alliance. It is the first win by the Cardinals in the OAC Tournament since the 2006-07 season when they knocked off Ohio Northern 52-51 in an opening round game.
Meanwhile, the loss ends the Blue Streaks season at 12-13 overall.
Otterbein led 74-64 with 1:33 left in the game, but John Carroll quickly scored six points in the next 48 seconds to pull within four, 74-70, with 45 seconds left.
However, the Cardinals had an answer, sinking 8 of 9 from the free-throw line in the final minute to seal the victory.
“I think it was exemplified tonight that when we play teams a third time we are going to be the best that we can be,” Head Coach Todd Adrian said. “We’ve been working on that all year, just trying to be better every time we play. The more games these guys get under their belts, the better they are going to be.”
Freshman Jake Bischoff led Otterbein with a game-high 27 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the field, including a perfect 6 of 6 from the charity stripe. Junior Max Van Meter (11) and senior Zach Bakenhaster (10) also scored in double-figures for the Cardinals.
Otterbein held a 26-24 lead with 8:13 left in the opening frame, but the Blue Streaks rallied with 11 unanswered points to take a 35-26 advantage with 3:46 remaining in the first half.
The Cardinals mounted a rally of their own, a 12-3 run over the final 3:17 to even up the score at 38-38 headed into the intermission.
Otterbein came out of the locker rooms on a roll, outscoring John Carroll 12-5 over the first six minutes of the second half to take a 50-43 lead with 14:26 left in the game.
The Cardinals never allowed the Blue Streaks to make a run by answering every John Carroll basket with a make of their own. Otterbein held their largest lead of the contest when they extended their lead to 10, 70-60, on a three-pointer by Bischoff with 4:51 remaining in the contest.
“I’m proud of them,” Coach Adrian said. “They showed a lot of fight at the end of that first half when we were down 10, we came back and went on a pretty good run to go up 10. Credit goes to our guys. They fought, John Carroll is a good team, they were scrappy. They had a nice second half, but I’m really proud of our guys to withstand any run.”
Otterbein shot 60.4 percent (29 of 48) from the field as a team, including 15 of 22 (68.2 percent) in the second half alone.
The Cardinals also made 11 of 20 (55 percent) attempts from three-point range, and shot 7 of 12 from downtown in the first half.
Although John Carroll made 26 trips to the free-throw line, the Blue Streaks made just 16 (61.5 percent), while Otterbein was 13 of 16 (81.3 percent) from the line for the game.
Sophomore David Hendrickson led the John Carroll attack with 26 points. Senior Kyle Hubbard, who scored 31 points in the two team’s last meeting, was held to just 13 points on 3-of-10 shooting.
