Ohio State's bigs had little games in road loss to Wisconsin: 6 takeaways
MADISON, Wis. – Ohio State had a bigs problem that led to a big issue inside the Kohl Center on Tuesday night.
Three days after breaking a five-game losing streak with a gritty, double-overtime home win against Maryland, the Buckeyes took the floor against a Wisconsin team looking to get right after a four-game losing streak of its own. The No. 20 Badgers had taken the first matchup between the teams, outscoring Ohio State 19-4 in the final six minutes thanks in large part to the play of fourth-year guard Max Klesmit.
Wisconsin’s primary post players, Steven Crowl and Tyler Wahl, were effective but not game-changers: Wahl had 11 points and five rebounds and Crowl had 5 points and six rebounds as the Buckeyes won the overall rebounding battle, 33-32.
They got their revenge Tuesday night. The Badgers handed Ohio State a 62-54 loss on the backs of their bigs, and this time the Buckeyes had no real answers. Crowl finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds, both team-high totals, while Wahl had 10 points and seven rebounds.
Ohio State starting center Felix Okpara finished with 2 points, attempting just one shot, and had four rebounds in 27:12. His primary backup, fourth-year center Zed Key, missed the only two shots he took and did not grab a rebound in 12:36. Each drew one foul.
The discrepancy in post play helped Wisconsin earn a 39-26 rebounding advantage, Ohio State’s worst rebounding margin of the season. At the half, Wisconsin built a 34-21 lead while rebounding six of its 13 misses, turning that into a 9-2 advantage in second-chance points.
“Their second-chance points really hurt us,” coach Chris Holtmann told The Dispatch. “It’s hard to explain how really physical they are unless you’re playing against it. It’s just a different level of physicality. Obviously they’re old, but their physicality makes it different. You’ve got to play through force against them, and we just weren’t able to do that enough tonight.”
That carried over to other parts of the game as well. Evan Mahaffey led Ohio State with six rebounds and also scored 10 points in 17:41.
“It really just takes discipline,” he said. “Discipline, and boxing your man out. Making sure if you’re not going to get it, your man doesn’t get it for sure. It takes that. It also takes everybody buying into crashing. There was a couple that were long rebounds. Those are hard to get, but at the same time we’ve got to find a way to come up with them.”
Here are five other takeaways from the loss.
Jamison Battle goes missing again
For a second consecutive game, Ohio State’s most prolific shooter and the Big Ten’s leading 3-point sniper was largely held in check. After not getting a 3-point attempt until 3:10 remained in regulation against Maryland, Battle missed all three of his attempts against the Terrapins. It was his first game without a made 3 this season, dropping him to 43.2% (64 for 148) from deep through 24 games.
It didn’t stop the Buckeyes from ending their five-game losing streak, but Tuesday night was a different story. In 27:29, Battle scored a season-low 3 points on 1-of-6 shooting. His only made bucket was a 3-pointer with 16 seconds remaining, keeping him from his first scoreless game since he missed five shots (four 3-pointers) in 22 minutes of a 61-39 Minnesota home loss to Purdue on Jan. 19, 2023.
His full stat line against Wisconsin: 3 points, five rebounds and two turnovers.
“We’ve got to look at it,” Holtmann said. “We’ve got to look at if there’s ways we’ve got to free him up to get him more. He’s getting played really physically. We ran that play to open the second half and I thought he got fouled, clearly, on the arm. I just think we’ve got to get him playing through physicality more.”
The Buckeyes went to Battle on the first possession of the second half but he missed in the paint. Mahaffey got the rebound but was tied up, leading to a jump ball and giving Wisconsin possession. Steven Crowl then scored on a right-handed hook shot over Okpara to grow his team’s lead to 15 points.
In his last two games, Battle is a combined 5 for 17 (29.4%) from the floor and 1 for 6 from 3 (16.7%) while scoring 11 points. He had 18 points in the first matchup against Wisconsin but scored 11 of them in the first 12:09. In the remaining 67:51, Battle scored 10 points against the Badgers on 4-of-12 shooting.
Final minutes of first half again prove fatal
Saturday, the Buckeyes took a one-point lead into the half by outscoring Maryland 9-0 in the final four minutes. Tuesday, Ohio State was within 20-19 with five minutes left but made just one field goal the rest of the way as Wisconsin closed on a 14-2 run to seize control of the game.
After a Bruce Thornton pull-up in the paint with 3:23 left made it 25-21 Wisconsin, the Buckeyes fell in love with the perimeter and fired up four consecutive misses. Thornton missed two in a row from the same spot on the left wing, Gayle missed a quick one in transition and Devin Royal took an ill-advised one from the left corner. The half ended with a Gayle miss on a driving layup and then a missed Gayle jumper from just inside the 3-point line after he drove, found no opening, dribbled back out and fired up the shot.
The Buckeyes rallied in the second half, but the deficit was insurmountable for a team still in search of a road win.
“I just was really disappointed with the last five minutes of the first half,” Holtmann said. “We have to have more guys play with more physicality in a game like this. We’ve got to help them with that as coaches.”
Mahaffey watched the stretch from the bench after picking up his second foul with 9:08 left.
“We obviously couldn’t score around that time, which wasn’t the best,” he said. “Their patience and what they were getting on the offensive end definitely killed us. Their offensive rebounding definitely hurt us, too. Those last four minutes are crucial going into a half because they can determine how a game goes.”
Offense fires up, then flames out
The Buckeyes looked dead and buried when Chucky Hepburn found Wahl under the basket to give the Badgers a 40-24 lead with 16:17 to play. Instead, a Thornton pull-up in the paint started a prolific sequence for Ohio State.
Beginning with the Thornton bucket, Ohio State scored on 10 straight possessions. After scoring 24 points in the first 24:01, the Buckeyes scored 23 points in the next 7:24 and got the deficit as close as five points. Thornton had nine points in the run, Bowen Hardman had six and Gayle, Mahaffey, Okpara and Devin Royal all had two.
“We shared the ball,” Hardman said. “We spaced the floor. We had some really, really good play calls to get Bruce and Roddy to the paint a little bit on mismatches, and I feel like we rebounded really well in that period. And we defended really well. We played well in transition, we pushed the ball, and we played with confidence. That’s the biggest thing.”
Then just as quickly, the lights went out. Ohio State didn’t score for the next 6:58. Within six points, Ohio State got two stops but Hardman missed a 3 and Hepburn stole a poor pass from Battle that turned into a fast-break layup with 7:14 to push Wisconsin’s lead back to eight points.
The defense would continue to hold, but Dale Bonner missed a 3, AJ Storr deflected a Thornton pass off of Battle and out of bounds and the misses started piling up. The Buckeyes missed nine straight shots and turned it over twice after fighting back to make it close.
“Of course teams are going to make some shots,” Hardman said. “We’ve just got to keep fighting through those stretches. That’s the biggest thing. We have all the talent in the world. We have a great coaching staff, it’s just what can we do a little bit more to go out there and finish the job?”
It didn't help that Ohio State only took two free throws, both by Hardman. None of Ohio State's starters got to the line, and their free-throw rate of 3.6% was the program's second-lowest mark in the KenPom.com era that dates back to 1998-99.
Why did the offense stagnate?
Thornton finished with a team-high 18 points but needed 19 shots to get there. He was 8-for-19 overall and 2-for-6 from 3 and finished with five assists but also had three turnovers as Hepburn hounded him all night.
As the Badgers withstood Ohio State’s second half charge, there were multiple possessions where Thornton seemed to be dribbling too much as the shot clock wound down.
“It’s a little bit of a catch-22, right, because he dribbled a lot in the Maryland game, too, for the last 15-20 minutes,” Holtmann said. “But I think in this game it probably could’ve moved a little more than what it did. At the same time, it was in his hands a little bit too much. It was probably a little bit too heavy of a load for him.”
Gayle finished with 10 points on 4-of-11 shooting and had four assists, four steals and just one turnover in 31:35 but was 1 for 3 for two points in the second half.
“I thought he missed a couple around the rim,” Holtmann said. “We’ve got to play through him a little bit more than what we did, but he’s also got to finish around the basket a little more than what he did. I thought he had multiple plays around the rim that he’s got to finish through contact better. He’s capable of doing it. He’s just got to get his shoulders squared to the rim and finish through contact better.”
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When will the road woes end?
It has now been 418 days since Ohio State has managed to win a true road game. The losing streak away from Value City Arena has now reached 16 straight games dating back to a win at Northwestern on Jan. 1, 2023. The only real thread tying them together has been the location. Some games, the Buckeyes have gone down fighting in the final seconds. In others, they’ve been blown out. Sometimes it’s the defense. Sometimes it’s the offense.
What will it take for the Buckeyes break the streak?
“I thought this game required more physical toughness around the rim and finishing on the glass than what we provided tonight,” Holtmann said. “I don’t have an easier answer than that. I think it’s that. The shots, we’ve been a team that can struggle to shoot at times, but we can’t allow teams to rebound it like they did. I get the conversation about how many losses it’s been on the road. I understand that, but that will be the case until we can answer it.”
Said Mahaffey: “It just takes consistency and withstanding people’s runs, withstanding how the crowd’s going to get into it and just be able to keep clawing and fighting every single time knowing it’s never going to be easy on the road. This team definitely can go on this run at the end of the year because we have that fight in us and I think it shows every single game that we have. Once we put the pieces together, it’s going to be good for us.”
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: 6 takeaways: Ohio State's bigs had little games in Wisconsin loss
