No. 20 Miami (Ohio) dropped its Mid-American Conference Tournament opener to UMass 87-83 on Thursday, spoiling the last perfect record in Division I men’s basketball.

Daniel Hankins-Sanford made a tiebreaking layup with 29 seconds remaining, and the Minutemen escaped with victory in a quarterfinal game that had 12 lead changes and 10 ties.

The RedHawks (31-1) were the fifth men’s Division I program this century to go undefeated during the regular season. Now it’s the second to get tripped up in its conference tournament. St. Joseph’s lost to Xavier in the 2004 Atlantic 10 quarterfinals but was still a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Miami was the first squad since Gonzaga in 2020-21 to not have a loss going into a conference tournament.

The RedHawks had eight one-possession games during the regular season, including their last three coming into the MAC Tournament.

There were some doubts about the RedHawks earning an at-large berth. Those quieted after a win over Ohio last Friday but might perk up again after this.

After Hankins-Sanford’s layup, Miami’s Luke Skaljac made a bad pass and turned the ball over to Marcus Banks, who made two free throws to make it a two-possession game.

Brant Byers was fouled on a 3-point attempt but made only two of three free throws. Banks iced the game with another pair of free throws with 8 seconds left.

Leonardo Bettiol led UMass (17-15) with 25 points while Banks added 18 and Jayden Ndjigue 16.
Byers led Miami with 17 points, and Eian Elmer added 16.

Miami had a 69-58 lead with 8:11 remaining before UMass rallied back with a 13-2 run. Ndjigue had six points, including a 3-pointer to tie it at 71.

UMass faces either Bowling Green or Toledo in Friday’s conference tournament semifinals.
Miami (Ohio) awaits its postseason fate.

CLEVELAND — A Cleveland resident said she is owed over $5000 in unemployment funds after the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) abruptly stopped paying her benefits.

“This is a system that’s in place to support me should I need it – and I did – and it was just a complete nightmare and a headache,” Jenna Berris said.

A money mystery

After she lost her job last September, Berris applied for unemployment benefits from the ODJFS.

Initially, the process worked as it was supposed to. She filed for benefits each week, along with submitting proof she was searching for a new position.

“The first couple weeks, I got my money,” she said.

But then, she said her payments abruptly stopped.

Berris said she would call ODJFS every Monday after filing for benefits on Sunday to ask why she wasn’t receiving payments.

“No one seemed to be able tell me what was going on,” she said.

A waiting game

Berris said she kept track of the time she spent on the phone waiting for answers from ODJFS.

She estimates she spent at least sixty hours on hold trying to find out why she had stopped receiving benefits.

“They (ODJFS) would do something in their system and say, ‘You know, you should be paid.’ — and it never happened. This went on for eight weeks,” she said.

At the same time, she said she was searching for a job, prepping for interviews, and writing resumes and cover letters.

She said trying to get to the bottom of why she stopped receiving benefits “just added a lot of extra stress to my plate.”

Berris said she was eventually told she had missed a deadline to upload her resume to the state’s system.

But Berris, who works in the technology sector, said she does not recall receiving any notifications about the requirement.

“The system is poorly designed,” she said. “I think it’s both a tech problem and a communications problem.

“The system is super antiquated… so you’re navigating back and forth but, also, any time you receive a communication, whether it’s about why your claim has been denied or why your claim is going for an appeal, it’s written in this complex legal jargon that I can’t understand, that I’m sure most people can’t understand,” she said.

A call for OH to ‘step up its game’

OH Rep. Darnell Brewer (D-Cleveland) was not surprised to hear Berris’s story.

“The state should … be stepping up its game,” he said. “We need to hold them accountable as well as to what they’re doing and what they’re not doing to help the citizens.”

Brewer said his office has received numerous phone calls and e-mail messages from constituents who are struggling to obtain unemployment benefits.

He said constituents complained about problems involving uploading information, updating information, and not receiving information from ODJFS.

He also said constituents complained about long wait times when they call, getting hung up on, and never receiving return phone calls.

It’s been six years since a massive surge in unemployment claims during the pandemic exposed Ohio’s unemployment system was antiquated, fragile and easily overwhelmed.

He said the state has improved measures to identify fraudulent claims, but should also improve systems to help claimants, like Berris.

“We (Ohio) should have been there to make sure everything she submitted was submitted on time, correctly and in a timely manner, so she can receive those benefits,” he said.

ODJFS response

ODJFS does not comment on specific cases.

However, in an email to News 5, a spokesperson said the agency regularly experiences an increase in claims during the winter months, which it started seeing in November 2025.

He said the federal shutdown last fall “delayed the hiring and training of our contract staff into December,” which is “partially responsible for some of the delays.”

He also said wait times for callbacks from ODJFS are improving.

At the beginning of February, the average wait time for callbacks was about 21.3 hours.

By the end of the month, it was within 5.6 hours.

The endgame

Berris said she recently got a new job, but drained her savings to stay afloat after the state stopped paying her unemployment benefits.

“I was unemployed for about five months and I didn’t receive payments for about half of that time,” she said.

Even though she’s now employed, Berris is still fighting to receive compensation from ODJFS.

She filed an appeal with the Ohio Unemployment Compensation Review Commission, which reconsiders ODJFS cases.

She said she had been on a decision from the commission since January. She said the commission should authorize the release of unemployment funds to her.

“This is money that I was counting on for survival during that time,” she said.

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – Thousands of FirstEnergy customers in Lakewood and Cleveland’s West Side, including the Westpark neighborhood, are without power again.

These areas have been plagued by outages since late December 2025.

Check FirstEnergy’s website outage maps for the latest numbers and restoration times.

Cleveland Public Power is reporting some outages on the West side and downtown Cleveland. Click here for the CPP power outage map.

19 News has reached out to FirstEnergy for the cause of the outage.

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