Battling in the paint, Felix Okpara managed to tip a rare Evan Mahaffey miss away from the Penn State defense and through the net. The second-chance points pushed Ohio State’s lead to 41-25 a few minutes into the second half, a 16-point advantage as the clock ticked past the 15:31 mark.

Forty-two days earlier, at that exact moment in the first meeting between Ohio State and the Nittany Lions, a Jamison Battle 3-pointer gave the Buckeyes a 55-37 lead inside the Bryce Jordan Center and seemingly had the visitors on track for a road win. Instead, Penn State closed with a 46-25 run to steal an 83-80 win on Dec. 9.

This time, in an eerily similar situation at Value City Arena, the Buckeyes persevered. Penn State trailed by double digits from the 15:59 mark of the first half until 2:17 remained and never got within closer than three possessions as Ohio State snapped a three-game losing streak with a 79-67 win on Saturday afternoon.

What was different this time compared to the first meeting?

“I thought their guards controlled the game more today, without a doubt,” Penn State coach Mike Rhoades said. “Multiple guys. You give your opponents some easy ones early in the game, guys get confident. You see the ball going in, you get confident.”

There were plenty of easy ones early for the Buckeyes, who opened up a 16-0 lead while holding Penn State scoreless for the first seven minutes. The Nittany Lions used an 11-1 run in the final five minutes to threaten to make it interesting, but Ohio State immediately answered with two points on the three occasions Penn State pulled within nine.

Offensively, Ohio State posted its best adjusted offensive efficiency mark since a Dec. 21 win against New Orleans. Defensively, it was Ohio State’s best efficiency rating since the Dec. 30 win against West Virginia.

“I thought our defense imposed itself in that (opening) stretch,” Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann said. “Second half, we have to play with more maturity with a lead defensively than what we’re playing right now. That just comes with growth and learning. Really on both ends when you have a lead, but certainly defensively, but man our start was tremendous.”

Ohio State snapped its three-game losing streak in what Roddy Gayle described Friday as a "must-win game." This season, the Buckeyes led the Nittany Lions for 75:12 of 80 minutes but split the season series.. The Nittany Lions led Ohio State for the final 58 seconds in the first meeting and never led in the rematch.

Here are five takeaways from the Ohio State win.

Buckeyes navigate the absence of suspended Scotty Middleton

Ohio State opened the game minus one of its primary rotation players. Freshman wing Scotty Middleton, one of eight players averaging at least 16 minutes a game this season, was suspended and not with the team after an undisclosed violation of team rules.

It is unlikely to be more than a one-game suspension, and Holtmann addressed the situation in his postgame press conference.

“Scotty’s still part of this team,” the coach said. “He’s a great kid. Really good kid. You guys know by now, whether I got my start coaching 12 or 15 years ago or coaching in 2024, we’re always going to hold players accountable. He’s a really good kid. Love him. Obviously a big part of this team.

“It’s a different era in college sports, but our best players have always wanted to be coached and wanted to be held accountable. I love him as a kid and looking forward to his return.”

In 16 appearances, Middleton has averaged 4.7 points and 1.8 rebounds while shooting 37.5% from the floor and 40.0% from 3-point range. He’s built a reputation as a “3 and D” player whose defensive versatility has been important in allowing the Buckeyes to switch more ball screens.

Multiple players step up in Scotty Middleton’s absence

Without the freshman, Ohio State got production from a number of unexpected sources. Fourth-year center Zed Key, who had scored five points in his last two games on only five shots, had 10 points while drawing eight fouls and not committing any in only 11:30.

Freshman Devin Royal had 8 second-half points in 5:14, giving him 15 points in his last two games. That’s his highest two-game scoring total of the year.

“He’s really strong,” Key said. “He’s talented. He has great footwork. Tenacious rebounder. Every time I turn around to look he has the offensive rebound. Every day he comes hard to work in practice.”

Fifth-year graduate transfer Dale Bonner had 7 points, a season-high six rebounds and two assists with no turnovers. He also made a 3-pointer, only his third in the last nine games dating back to the loss at Penn State, while seeing his most minutes in a Big Ten game (25:07) and more than double his playing time in any of the last three games.

The headliner was sophomore Evan Mahaffey, though. The Penn State transfer continued a run of recent strong performances and finished with a career-high 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting. He also had five rebounds and two steals in 31:41 against his former teammates.

“One of the things I can try to do is give a guy like Dale consistent minutes and try to get in a rhythm,” Holtmann said. “Playing at home always helps for guys coming off the bench. We need to try to settle in on a little bit of a rotation with our bench group, be consistent with it, hope it gets them in a rhythm and gives those guys confidence to go play.”

Outside shots still not falling

It wasn’t enough to sink the Buckeyes, but this was a fourth straight game in which they struggled to shoot with accuracy from 3. Since going 11 for 24 (45.8%) in a win against Rutgers, Ohio State is now 16 for 88 (18.2%) from deep in its last four games.

Saturday, the Buckeyes went 3 for 18 (16.7%). Jamison Battle was 1 for 2, Bonner was 1 for 4 and Bruce Thornton was 1 for 7.

“A lot of those are clean looks and a lot of them played thought the paint and they were after some ball movement and some cutting,” Holtmann said. “I did like a majority of them. There might’ve been one or two where I felt in transition we could’ve gotten to the rim, but I did like them. We’ve got to keep taking those. We cannot stop taking those.”

Ohio State compensated for its cold shooting by getting the ball to the paint. It finished with 40 points in the paint, its second-highest total of the year only behind a 46-point outing in a win against Central Michigan on Nov. 29.

“You could tell they really wanted to get to the rim on us,” Rhoades said. “Today they just drove us. Big boy-d us, is the word I’d use. They got us down deep and they went through us, over us, around us and you give up 40 points in the paint and 22 foul shots, I don’t care of you’re home or away that’s going to be a tough one.”

The Buckeyes shot 25 free throws and hit 22 of them (88.0%), their most attempts since the West Virginia game. Key went 6 for 7, Bonner was 4 for 6 and both Mahaffey and Gayle were perfect on four attempts.

The defense was better … mostly

On the balance, Ohio State’s defense did what it needed to do. The Buckeyes built a 16-0 lead in the first seven minutes and went on to win by 12 points despite the aforementioned poor 3-point shooting. In this era of college basketball, its about as consistent an overall game as most teams could ask for.

Penn State did make a late run with the game mostly already in hand, though. Mahaffey’s free throws with 7:59 left pushed Ohio State’s lead to a game-high 23 points at 66-43, but Penn State used a 7-0 run in the next 2:30 to cut the deficit to 68-52 with 5:04 to play.

Bonner’s 3-pointer halted that run, but two 3-pointers from Kanye Clary and one from Zach Hicks powered an 11-1 run that got Penn State within 72-63 with 2:17 left in what was the high-water mark for the Nittany Lions.

“I think we relax too much,” Holtmann said of that stretch. “I don’t think we play with as much physicality or aggressiveness, offensively or defensively in stretches. The clock’s your friend in those situations so I get the offensive thing a little bit because you are trying to bleed the clock a little bit, but our lack of bite defensively, it’s a maturity thing. We have to get better with it.”

Gayle drove, drew contact and hit two free throws to push the lead back to 11. When Ace Baldwin Jr. converted a second-chance opportunity in the paint to again get within nine, Gayle answered with a turnaround jumper. And when Demetrius Lilley also converted a second-chance opportunity, Penn State called timeout with 55.1 seconds left and again within nine points at 76-67.

Bonner hit three of four free throws to close it out from there.

“Why we had a chance to get back in the game, they weren’t banging 3s left and right but we had no resistance at the rim today and they got downhill way too much on us and they went to the foul line a bunch,” Rhoades said.

Ohio State Buckeyes: Join the Ohio State Sports Insider text group with Bill Rabinowitz, Joey Kaufman Adam Jardy

Ohio State honors 17 former captains

The Buckeyes welcomed back more than a dozen former captains for a halftime introduction to the crowd. Friday night, Ohio State hosted its annual captains’ dinner, as well. The following former captains were on hand for the game: Tom Williams (1953), James Laughlin (1958), Dick Furry (1960), Denny Meadors (1969), Rick Smith (1979), Ron Stokes (1984-85), Tony White (1989), Tom Brandewie (1993), Alex Davis (1993), Jamie Skelton (1994), Otis Winston (1997), Michael Redd (2000), Velimir Radinovic (2004), Terence Dials (2004-06), Matt Sylvester (2006), Matt Terwilliger (2008) and Joey Lane (2019).

ajardy@dispatch.com

@AdamJardy

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: 5 takeaways: Cold-shooting Ohio State still beats Penn State