Marshall University Athletics
Marshall University
Ohio
@HerdMBB Suffers Setback at Ohio, 85-70
12/1/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
ATHENS, Ohio - For the third consecutive game, a career performance from redshirt freshman guard C.J. Burks (Martinsburg, W.Va.) paced Marshall men's basketball (0-4), but the Thundering Herd could not withstand a second-half surge from Ohio (4-2) and fell on the road, 85-70, at the Convocation Center on Tuesday night.
"We just can't sustain play," second-year coach Dan D'Antoni said. "We play well in spurts and then we become undisciplined. We start going off on our own agendas and we can't do that. They understood that in the first half, when that ball was moving, and we were getting wide open shots. It came down to the second half and [Ohio] didn't do anything different. We quit attacking the way we did; we didn't move the ball like we did."
As reigning Conference USA Co-Freshman of the Week, Burks put up 20 points for the first time in his young career, leading the Herd on 9-of-17 shooting from the field and 2-of-5 from long range. He added two steals and played a team-high 33 minutes. Senior forward James Kelly (Ann Arbor, Mich.) was the only other Marshall player to reach double-figure scoring with a career-high 18 points. He and junior forward Ryan Taylor (Indianapolis, Ind.) were the top rebounders for the Herd with eight apiece. Junior guard Stevie Browning (Logan, W.Va.) tied his career-high of six assists to lead Marshall.
"On the positive side, C.J. Burks is a player," D'Antoni said. "He has played extremely well. We've got some good things coming from him."
D'Antoni put his third different starting lineup in the last four games on the floor, with Burks joining in for the first time in his career.
After giving up a free throw to start the game, Marshall went on a 9-0 run over the next three minutes to reach its largest lead of 9-1 at 16:19. Kelly had seven of the Herd's first nine points, including a 3-pointer.
Ohio trimmed its deficit to one point with a 7-0 run until 14:09, but the Herd held on to the lead, 9-8. Burks became Marshall's first player in double figures, going 5-of-5 and 2-of-2 from long range on his first attempts for 12 points.
After Marshall led by as many as seven (26-19 at 7:56), a 12-6 run for the Bobcats put them within one point, down 32-31 at 3:17. The score was knotted up at 34 apiece with 1:15 on the clock. A layup from Taylor gave the Herd a 36-34 lead with 27 seconds left, but a foul was called on Marshall with one second remaining. Jaaron Simmons sunk two free throws to tie the score for the second time at 36-36, going into the break.
The Herd went on a 4-0 run to start the second half, but the Bobcats immediately responded with an 8-0 run to take the lead (44-40) for the first time since leading 1-0. Marshall went without a field goal from 19:30 to 14:49, and after a 10-0 Ohio run, the Bobcats reached a 14-point margin (62-48) with 10:01 remaining. The Herd stopped the run at 9:38 with a layup from Browning, and clawed its way back into a single-digit deficit at 5:54 (68-59) but that was as close as Marshall would come.
With 1:01 remaining in the contest, Ohio pulled into its largest lead of 19, up 85-66, but the Herd chipped away a few points and ultimately fell 85-70.
Ohio had the advantage in rebounding, 45-33, and out-shot the Herd 50.8 percent (30-of-59) to 42 percent (29-of-69). Despite the Bobcats' advantage in height, Marshall led scoring in the paint, 44-32.
UP NEXT
The MAC-tion continues for Marshall with Akron on Friday, Dec. 4, 7 p.m. at Cam Henderson Center. For the latest information about Marshall men's basketball, follow @HerdMBB on Twitter.
---HerdZone.com---
