While he was most likely giving thanks to his Creator as time expired, Nick Martinelli (18 pts) could have easily been saying “Oh, look at your tournament bubble. I think we just popped it.” (Press Pros Feature Photos by Brian Bayless)
Ohio State’s humbling loss to Northwestern at home Thursday night makes the task of earning an NCAA Tournament berth far more difficult with three of the last four games on the road.
Columbus, OH – CTRL-ALT-DELETE.
Reboot.
If only Ohio State could do that to Thursday night’s event at the Schottenstein Center that goes in the record books as a basketball game. For the Buckeyes, what unfolded against Northwestern in front of an announced crowd of 12,684 was the furthest thing from basketball.
There’s no deleting it. It counts.
Faced with a game they couldn’t lose and keep a straight face about being worthy of an NCAA Tournament invitation, the Buckeyes played their worst game of the season. They were lifeless, defenseless, couldn’t shoot and turned the basketball over at times with the speed of a T-shirt giveaway.
The raw numbers.
Sixteen turnovers, 32.7% shooting. Trailed by 28. Outscored 40-22 in the paint. Final score: Northwestern 70, Ohio State 49.
The raw feelings.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
“Clearly we did not have the stuff we needed to,” head coach Jake Diebler said. “The games within the game, the rebounding, the turnovers, the paint that we talked about, we weren’t good enough in those areas.”
No matter the questions that came Diebler’s way, there was nothing positive to say.
“This is not an acceptable way to play this game,” he said. “There were stretches where we were playing hard, but we were letting our offense affect our defense. It felt almost like a new young team, which we haven’t been. You expect something like that to happen in the beginning of the season. That can’t happen again.”
And if it does, is the dream of ending a two-year Big Dance drought over? Maybe.
Ohio State (15-12, 7-9 Big Ten) entered the day as a projected No. 9 seed in March by ESPN. They were seen as better than a last-four-in or a next-to-last-four-in team. Northwestern, playing without its second- and third-leading scorers, made the Buckeyes look worse than a bubble team. And the performance can’t be erased from the NCAA computers or the NET ranking tool the committee uses to help make their selections.
This loss, while only one of many, could be one of those separators when the committee is splitting resume hairs.
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Now the Buckeyes must go to Los Angeles to face UCLA and USC, return home to face Nebraska and finish the season at Indiana. Anything worse than 2-2, it seems, dooms them. And 2-2 guarantees nothing. Relying on a couple wins in the Big Ten tournament is never a good strategy.
Fifth-year transfer guard Micah Parrish, who played in the 2023 NCAA final for San Diego State, understands what is at stake when the Buckeyes play Sunday at UCLA.
One of the bright spots of the night was Micah Parrish, who quietly poured in 16 points.
“It’s a must-win game,” he said. “I expect us to come out and play hard, play like our life’s on the line.”
For some reason, the Buckeyes didn’t play with urgency against Northwestern. Maybe they expected it to be easy. The Wildcats (14-13, 5-11) hadn’t won a game away from home this season. They were 1-4 since losing second-leading scorer and top rebounder Brooks Barnhizer to injury. And this was their fourth game without third-leading scorer Jalen Leach in the lineup.
With 31 points on the bench, Northwestern coach Chris Collins made defense more of an emphasis than ever. After blowing a 20-point second-half lead in their most recent loss, Collins had no choice. And the Wildcats responded. They contested 3-point shots, denied 3-point shots, deflected passes, created turnovers, were more physical and didn’t let Devin Royal score a basket.
“We really challenged our guys,” Collins said. “We did a really good job defending them and making them take tough shots, not fouling them.”
The Buckeyes have endured long scoring droughts in most games. But they always countered with scoring runs that injected life back into them and the crowd. Not this time.
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They scored on their first two possessions before disappearing into the ether. During the 6:21 scoring drought, the Buckeyes committed six turnovers. They trailed 10-7 when Bruce Thornton finally scored. But no game-changing run was coming – not then or ever.
Ques Glover tries to draw a blocking foul, but gets called for the charge as he and the Buckeyes take one on the chin in Columbus.
“We’ve had our struggles, so to be able to just keep fighting the whole length of the game and never really let them make a run at us, that was what I was most impressed with,” Collins said. “They never had that eight-point, 10-point burst to kind of get the crowd into the game, to put real game pressure on us.”
The Buckeyes trailed 31-24 at halftime. Northwestern started the second half with a 12-0 run. At 43-24 with 15 minutes left, the Buckeyes had plenty of time. But they had no game and started forcing shots. As the next few minutes passed it became more and more obvious the hole was inescapable.
“We tried to hit some home runs, and they made us pay for it,” Diebler said. “We took some low percentage shots, some long contested twos, and, ultimately, they made us pay because they were getting much better looks.”
Head Coach Jake Diebler was at a loss to explain the shocking, 21-point drubbing by Northwestern that jeopardizes Ohio State’s NCAA tournament bid.
Ohio State did not guard the ball as well as it has shown most of the season, and multiple Wildcats took advantage.
Nick Martinelli, who backed down Royal and others into the lane, used his creativity to score 18 points. The Buckeyes moved Ty Berry off the 3-point line, but he still scored 15. Seven-footer Matthew Nicholson, not as skilled as Michigan’s 7-footers, scored 10 points. And freshman guard K.J. Windham, making his fifth start, scored 15 points.
Ohio State’s offense was one-dimensional. Outside of Parrish’s 16 points and Thornton’s 13, no one else was a factor. Royal and John Mobley Jr. scored only four points apiece.
While Diebler said his players let a poor offensive night negatively affect their play on defense, he didn’t question his team’s mental toughness.
“We gotta make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said. “We’re mentally tough enough. Without question, this team has it, so I don’t anticipate this happening again. But we also got to own it in order to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Their NCAA Tournament resume, as good as it is in spots, can’t take another hit like this one. Time for do-overs has run out.
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