As a miserable first half reached its end Saturday, Bubba Walther walked past the Marching 110 toward the locker room.
He paused for a second to scan the 7,439 shell-shocked fans in attendance.
“This place is packed and we’re down by 13,” Walther recalled thinking. “That’s a joke.”
Calling it a joke might have been a tad harsh, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. The Bobcats were down double-digits, the O Zone’s pre-game buzz had worn off and it looked as if The Convo’s national debut would be remembered only for how awful its yellowish-beige floor looks on the tube.
But then Bubba got hot.
It took the Patriots an entire half to slowly and painfully silence a make-your-ears-bleed loud Convo. Walther needed just 30 seconds to wake them up.
Walther, a self-proclaimed, hot-cold “streak shooter,” nailed a deep 3 just a little more than three minutes into the second half to, finally, shrink the lead to single digits. Thirty seconds later, Walther nailed another longball, forcing George Mason coach Jim Larranaga to call a timeout just 12 seconds before an allotted media timeout.
Larranaga should have called it after Walther’s first. Even though the Bobcats were still down by five at the time, the damage was done.
When Walther knows his shots are going to fall before he even catches a pass — which he admitted afterward Saturday — the Bobcats simply can’t be stopped in The Convo.
Of course, Saturday’s win doesn’t do much for the Bobcats in the grand scheme of things. It had little effect on the Bobcats long-dead at-large bid hopes and the team’s fledgling hopes at snagging a first-round bye in the conference tournament didn’t budge.
It will, however, go down as one of the most memorable and entertaining wins of this atypical Bobcats season. You can thank Bubba the Entertainer for that.
Walther shoots when you least expect it. He shoots when you expect it. And, the most frustrating, he shoots when you shouldn’t expect it, but you still begrudgingly see it coming because, well, he’s Bubba.
But that’s what makes him so fun to watch. Every team needs a player like Walther, a guy who’ll frustrate the heck out of you one minute, then get your fists pumping five seconds later. He’s perfected the “Oh my God he’s shooting from there … Yes!” 3-pointer.
Walther, as he has all season since moving back to shooting guard, showed Saturday that he can help the Bobcats win with more than just his triple tries.
His slick no-look pass to Jerome Tillman under the hoop gave the Bobcats a one-point lead with less than seven minutes to go. His second 15-foot teardrop jumper of the half less than two minutes later gave Ohio the lead for good and ensured “Winning team, losing team” would happen before the final buzzer.
Don’t go as far as thinking that the zebra’s completely changed his stripes, though.
With the Bobcats comfortably ahead in garbage time, Walther took a pass about 10 feet behind the 3-point line and faked a shot, causing his defender to embarrassingly jump for a block. You couldn’t blame him. The collective gasp voiced from the crowd reaffirmed that no one really knows when Walther will chuck it.
“I don’t even know why I do it,” Walther said. “I like hearing the crowd when I do it.”
Just as any good entertainer should.
— Andrew Gribble is a senior journalism major and The Post’s sports editor. Send him an e-mail at ag358604@ohiou.edu
Reader Comments
Submit a comment to The Post