ATHENS, Ohio – The Western Michigan men's basketball team dropped a 94-69 decision to Ohio at the Convocation Center in Athens on Tuesday night.   
 
For the team-leading eighth time this season, Chansey Willis Jr. led the Broncos (7-15, 4-6 MAC) in scoring, as he tallied 20 points. He also grabbed five rebounds and handed out five assists for the Brown and Gold. Markhi Strickland was in double-figures for the 15th time, netting 12 points.
 
The first five points of the evening went to Western Michigan, but Ohio (12-10, 6-4) answered with the next 12 to take a 12-5 edge in the opening minutes. The Broncos closed the gap to 18-15 just past the midway point of the period, but OU came right back with seven in a row to ignite an 18-3 surge which extended the hosts' lead to 36-18. The Bobcats pushed the margin to 48-24 heading into the locker room.
 
Western Michigan came out and tallied the first eight points after halftime, with an alley-oop from Willis to Strickland trimming the deficit to 48-32. That was as close as WMU came in the second half, however, as Ohio used a 9-2 spurt a few minutes later to push their lead above 20 for the remainder of the evening.  
 
The Broncos hit 25-of-64 (39.1 percent) from the field for the evening, while Ohio made 33-of-55 (60.0 percent) from the floor.
 
Western Michigan returns to Kalamazoo on Saturday afternoon as it hosts Georgia Southern in its second game of this year's MAC-Sun Belt Challenge. Tip between the Broncos and Eagles is slated for 1 pm at University Arena. For tickets to any WMU men's basketball game, visit wmubroncos.com/tickets.