Bruce Thornton scored 25 points in the Buckeyes’ 88-79 loss to Minnesota on the road, Thursday. (Press Pros File Photos)
A slow start and other assorted problems doom Ohio State to its first loss under interim head coach Jake Diebler and a program-record 17th straight on the road.
Ohio State basketball anywhere but the Schottenstein Center is always hard to watch. You might wonder if you should even bother to turn on the Big Ten Network or pay for another month of Peacock.
The road for the Buckeyes is what it is no matter who the coach is.
The potholes vary, but the combination usually consists of a grab bag of slow starts, scoring droughts, poor rebounding, untimely turnovers, relying too much on too few for points, etc. Watching the Buckeyes play on the road is like binging your favorite show for the umpteenth time.
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But with this team you’re not enjoying the show.
Such was Thursday night’s trip to Williams Arena to play Minnesota. The potholes knocked the Buckeyes off course from the start in an 88-79 defeat they were out of for most of the second half.
Before reliving the details of the Buckeyes’ 17th straight road loss that set a program record, let’s consider a positive aspect. Not in a moral victory way, but in a way that gives interim head coach Jake Diebler credit.
When Minnesota built the lead to 17 points in the second half, what were the chances the Buckeyes would ever get the lead down to eight in the final two minutes? If Chris Holtmann was still the coach, it probably would not have happened. That idea, which is a bit of an assumption, isn’t just on Holtmann. It’s on the players, too.
But under Diebler, this team is playing harder and showed more fight than they’ve showed all season in similar situations. Yes, it’s their fault (plus, Minnesota did play awfully well) they fell behind by 17. But it was still a positive character trait to see.
And the way Bruce Thornton played in the second half with 23 of his 25 points was fun to watch. But like so many other things to question about this team, why did he take only two shots in the first half?
Ok, enough of that. Otherwise, this was the Ohio State team we’ve learned to expect all too often.
Minnesota started the game on fire, but Ohio State wasn’t in defensive position to contest shots in those early minutes. The Gophers bolted to a 14-4 lead without missing a shot.
“We lacked some urgency to start the game,” Diebler said. “Then for the majority of the first half we really outplayed them.”
Diebler isn’t wrong. Led by Jamison Battle’s 4-of-5 shooting and 13 of his 21 points, the Buckeyes drew even at 30-30 and 32-32. Then they fell apart and the Gophers finished the half with a 10-2 run for a 42-34 lead.
“This has been a really tough place to play, but we have to get off to a better start,” Diebler said. “And we’ve got to find a way to close the half better on the road.”
All true.
And to win on the road the Buckeyes have to figure out how to do the same things well they did in their upset win Sunday against Purdue, the best team in the Big Ten and a likely No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed.
Diebler took the same approach against Minnesota with his lineup. He trusted more players to get a victory than Chris Holtmann ever did. Holtmann, it seemed, felt compelled to stay only with a few and tried too hard to try to guarantee the best shot at victory because he knew his job was in jeopardy.
Diebler doesn’t feel that pressure, and he’s giving young players a chance to learn how to be college basketball players in games. Against Purdue, the Buckeyes played loose, aggressive and with poise. But at Minnesota they tightened up at times and lacked poise. They were undone by their own sloppiness, poor rebounding, shot-clock violations and too many contested shots late in the shot clock.
The Buckeyes committed 11 turnovers, many of them unforced. Against Purdue they treated the ball like a precious heirloom and gave the ball away only six times.
The Buckeyes forced Purdue into 14 turnovers and scored 22 points as a result. The Gophers lost the ball only nine times for 12 OSU points.
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Somehow getting crushed on the boards didn’t hurt the Buckeyes against Purdue. But this time it did. The Gophers turned 13 offensive rebounds into 19 points, many in answer to an OSU push. The Buckeyes scored only nine such points.
Diebler’s liberal substitution policy created 26 bench points against Purdue. Against Minnesota it got them 18. But the real offensive problems were the ones that usually hurt the Buckeyes.
Outside of Thornton, Battle and Roddy Gayle Jr., who scored 13 points, no one else was a go-to guy. They shot 51% from the field, which is good enough to win a lot of games, but the lid remains on the bucket from 3-point range for everyone except Battle.
The funny thing is, this was a good Quad 2 win for Minnesota in its bid to earn an NCAA Tournament bid. The Gophers are 17-9 and 8-7 in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes are 15-12 and in next-to-last place.
“Just the emotions at the end of the year, they know every game is so important,” Minnesota coach Ben Johnson said. “I wanted them to play loose and rely on our defense to win.”
That’s a good strategy for any team at home against Ohio State.
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