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ATHENS, Ohio - The Ohio men's basketball team (5-7, 0-1 MAC) took on the Bowling Green Falcons (9-3, 1-0 MAC) at the Convocation Center for their first Mid-American Conference matchup of the season. Despite a late attempt at a comeback, the Bobcats would fall 68-58.
 
"I thought we battled and I didn't think the urgency was there for the first 33 minutes of the game, and then we started playing harder and had more of an urgency to cut it to six,"  Ohio coach Jeff Boals said. "But it's one (conference) game of 18. But we have to learn from this." 
 
As a team, Ohio made five threes and grabbed 30 rebounds in the loss. On offense, the team made 17 field goals and got to the free-throw line 30 times. 
 
Senior guard Jackson Paveletzke (Kimberly, Wis.) made each of his first four shots and went on to lead the Bobcats in scoring with 19 points. Senior guard Ajay Sheldon (Dublin, Ohio) made three three-point shots to add nine points. Senior forward Aidan Hadaway (Lafayette, Ga.) led the team in rebounds with 10, while contributing seven points to the effort.  
 
Paveletzke got the scoring going with a turnaround jumper on the Bobcats' first offensive drive. The Bobcats and the Falcons remained relatively evenly matched through the game's first few minutes. After five minutes, the game was tied 10-10. 
 
Bowling Green was the first team to pull away with a five-point lead at 15-10, but Ohio responded with consecutive threes from Sheldon and redshirt freshman forward Kiir Kuany (Melbourne, Australia) to bring the deficit to one at 17-16. Midway through the first half, neither team had built a lead of more than five. 
 
The Falcons held Ohio to no points in the final 3:22 of the half while going on a 6-0 run to take a 42-29 lead into the halftime break. 


 
A three-point jumper by Paveletzke in the opening minutes of the second half got the Bobcats going in pursuit of cutting a double-digit deficit. Despite a 5-0 run to start the half, Ohio was still looking at a 42-33 deficit with just under 18 minutes to play. 
 
Scoring was hard to come by in the second half for Ohio. With under 12 minutes to play, the Bobcats trailed 54-37. 
 
A late three by Sheldon would give the Bobcats a 7-0 run and a sliver of hope with four minutes to play, and looking at a 62-50 deficit. The Ohio run soon snowballed into a 13-0 run to cut the lead to 62-56 with under a minute to play. 
 
Unfortunately for Ohio, the run was stopped by two Bowling Green free throws and wasn't enough to earn a win despite a strong finish. 
 
Ohio will return to the Convocation Center this Monday, Dec. 22, for a non-conference matchup against Miami - Hamilton. That game will tip off at 12 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN+. 
 
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