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Ndour's dunk in final second gives Ohio 2nd straight win

Senior scores career-high 31, carries Bobcats down stretch


ATHENS - Maurice Ndour scored a career-high 31 points, including the game-winning dunk with .6 second left, and Ohio defeated Buffalo 63-61 on Saturday at The Convo.

Antonio Campbell's inbound pass from the opposite baseline was a perfect strike to Ndour at the 3-point line, and with his defender leaning left, Ndour went right down the middle of the lane with two dribbles before rising for a two-handed slam.

"It's big man, it's big," Ndour said. "Like I've told the guys, we've got a lot of lessons to learn from. Since Wednesday, we're trying to play the best basketball with energy and effort, and that's what we did."

Ohio (7-10, 2-4 Mid-American Conference) rallied from seven down with five and a half minutes remaining, using an 8-0 run to take a three-point lead before Jarryn Skeete tied it at 61 with 41 seconds left.

Both teams missed chances to take the lead after Skeete's game-tying shot. Double-teamed in the post, Ndour dished out to Stevie Taylor for an open 3-pointer, but it was long. Buffalo's Justin Moss drove left with a runner high off the glass and wide, with Campbell rebounding and immediately calling timeout with 3.2 seconds remaining.

"We wanted to have someone on the ball to make sure that they didn't get off a clean pass," Buffalo coach Bobby Hurley said. "Unfortunately, it did not work out for us, and Ndour is a great player in our league and he had a big day and made the big play to win it."

Xavier Ford's two free throws with 5:37 left put the Bulls up 54-47, and they led 58-53 on a Raheen Johnson layup with 3:24 to go. It was all Ndour after that.

He connected on two foul shots with 3:07 left to make it a one-possession game and then blocked Ford. Ryan Taylor missed a jumper, but Ndour cleaned it up to get the Bobcats within one, 58-57, with 2:24 to go.

Ndour's two free throws with 1:51 left gave the Bobcats the lead, and Ndour stuffed Will Regan to force a shot clock violation. Ndour backed down a defender and scored a layup to increase Ohio's lead to three with 56 seconds left.

Ndour had 18 of his points in the second half, including the final 10 and 12 of the last 13 for the Bobcats in the game's final five minutes. He was 10-of-15 from the field and 10-of-10 at the foul line.

"Mo has got to be our first option," Ohio coach Saul Phillips said. "Unless someone sprouts 7-6 arms and moves like he does, he's got to be our first option. NBA scouts come to see him in practice. ... We always want Mo to be a primary option. Tonight, we did a better job of keeping him a primary option."

Ryan Taylor had 12 points, and Javarez Willis finished with nine for Ohio. Antonio Campbell scored only six points but had a team-best 10 rebounds.

Buffalo (12-6, 3-3 MAC) had a balanced effort with 11 points each from Moss and Ford, 10 from Johnson and eight each for Shannon Evans and Rodell Wiggington, who originally signed with the Bobcats before changing his mind after coach Jim Christian left Ohio. He was just 3 of 11.

Each team's biggest lead was seven points. The Bobcats used a 13-2 run to turn a 20-16 deficit at the 8:15 mark in the first half into a 29-22 advantage on an Ndour 3-pointer. Buffalo followed with a 9-1 run to take a one-point lead before an Ndour layup made it 32-31 in favor of Ohio at the half.

Willis hit a 3-pointer and Ryan Taylor connected on a jumper for a six-point Bobcats lead early in the second half. Buffalo took the lead at the midway point of the second half with an 8-0 run, and it held it until Ohio's late spurt.

While the Bobcats won Wednesday night with a hot shooting performance beyond the arc, that was not so Saturday. It made just 6-of-19 3-pointers against Buffalo, which also struggled from 3, going 4-of-22.

Buffalo had a tougher shooting game overall, finishing at just 35.9 percent, compared to Ohio's 41.5 percent, but it made up for it with extra chances via 20 offensive rebounds.

"I thought in the half court we were really good defensively," Phillips said. "I thought they got us on the offensive glass and they got us in transition. I think our mindset, making tough plays, I think that is something that really, really changed in the last couple of games."

Ohio will go for its third straight win when it faces Eastern Michigan University at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Ypsilanti, Michigan.








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