As season slides away, Ohio State still not sure how to win: 5 Indiana takeaways
There wasn’t a whole lot to say on Tuesday night.
Questions had to be asked, and they were. Answers, a few that were insightful but the majority of which were not, were parceled out. There was plenty to talk about after the latest Ohio State collapse in a season that feels firmly off the rails and headed for an embankment, but it was more about the feeling that crept into Value City Arena in the final 18 minutes or so of a home game against Indiana.
By the time Bruce Thornton’s final 3-point shot found only the rim and the sophomore guard collapsed on the court after a 76-73 loss, the feeling was undeniable: This isn’t working, and the odds against it ever working for the Buckeyes this season are longer than those on a last-minute play being executed with success.
For the second time this season, Ohio State trudged off the court with a fresh loss despite having led by 18 points. It happened Dec. 9 at Penn State, when the Buckeyes led 55-37 with 15:31 left but lost 83-80 to snap a seven-game winning streak and cast the first real doubt on where the season could be headed. That took place inside the Bryce Jordan Center, not exactly the most raucous of Big Ten venues, but a road game nonetheless for the Big Ten’s youngest team for a second year running.
This was at home, in a must-win game against an Indiana team that hates shooting 3-pointers, led by a coach feeling the heat from his fan base and seemingly in a comparable free fall. The Hoosiers were without veteran guard Xavier Johnson, who had put up 18 points in a six-point win against the Buckeyes last month, and had just taken a 14-point home loss to Penn State on Saturday.
With all that as backdrop, Ohio State led 49-31 with 17:39 left when Kel’el Ware was whistled for a goaltend on a Roddy Gayle Jr. drive to the line. Having lost four straight and seven of their past eight, the Buckeyes were in the driver’s seat to put away a team that ranked among the 15 least-prolific 3-point shooters in the nation. Penn State got hot from the perimeter in its comeback; surely Indiana couldn’t do the same, right?
The Hoosiers didn’t need to, at least until the end. Possession by possession, Indiana’s duo of fourth-year guard Trey Galloway and second-year forward and leading scorer Malik Reneau carved up Ohio State’s ball-screen defense. Offensively, the Buckeyes went cold, eventually missing nine of their final 11 shots.
At this point, the reasons don’t seem to matter. Past the midpoint of Big Ten play, the game laid bare a grim fact: This Ohio State team is still trying to learn how to win, and it’s now fair to question if it ever will figure it out this season.
“We’ve got great kids,” coach Chris Holtmann said. “I don’t ever question that, but we need to see some results here. I think it’s frustrating for everybody. It’s obviously been a really hard stretch for all of our players, and our coaches. We’ve got to find a way out of it.”
Indiana outscored Ohio State 23-8 in the final 7:01. At Penn State, Ohio State was outscored 46-25 in the final 15:14 and 32-16 in the final 9:29. In a 71-60 loss to No. 15 Wisconsin on Jan. 10, Ohio State was outscored 17-4 in the final 5:16. In a 73-65 loss at Michigan on Jan. 15, Ohio State was outscored 13-4 in the final 3:37.
Each game had its reasons. Each loss further soured the potential of the season. Tuesday night, there wasn’t a lot to say. For the first time this year, Holtmann was terse with his comments, repeatedly echoing some version of his belief that the Buckeyes “just weren’t as detailed as we needed to be or tough as we needed to be late.”
Gayle, who tied Jamison Battle for the team high with 19 points, scored only 4 of them after halftime.
“I just felt like we wasn’t detailed enough in the second half,” he said. “First half, we came out with the kind of aggression we need to withstand for the whole entire game. In order for us to be the team we want to be, we’ve got to be able to withstand that aggression and that attention to detail.”
Gayle spoke with reporters for about six minutes. He was followed by Holtmann, who spoke for about the same length. Then it was off to digest whatever they could about how this one went south, how the season continues to spiral and what, if anything can be done to stop it.
“We’ll see how we respond (Wednesday),” Holtmann said.
Talk might usually be cheap, but it was at a premium Tuesday night. Here are four other takeaways from the loss.
Ohio State had no answers for Trey Galloway
For nearly 23 minutes, Ohio State seemed to be on its way to victory. Then Trey Galloway happened. His 3-pointer with 17:23 left was the start of a methodical climb back into the game for the Hoosiers. Galloway scored on a drive on the next possession, put back his own miss two possessions later and then did the same two possessions after that to personally account for nine points in an 11-2 Indiana run that got it back to a single-digit deficit.
He was just getting started. His dish to Kel’el Ware made it 55-46 with 12:24 left. Another dish to Reneau made it 60-51 with 9:16 left. But his most impactful moments were still to come.
Ohio State led 65-53 after two Zed Key free throws with 7:42 and had a chance to extend the lead when Mackenzie Mgbako missed underneath the rim only for Bruce Thornton to miss on a floater with 7:12 to play.
Galloway drew a foul on Gayle and made both free throws with 7:01 to play. It was the start of a 23-8 run to close the game for the Hoosiers, and Galloway scored 10 of those points. He also had the assist on Anthony Leal’s go-ahead 3-pointer with 22 seconds left.
“It was a little bit of toughness, but it was lack of detail, too,” Holtmann said. “You can’t leave a 3-point shooter on ball side.”
Of the 11 players to have seen playing time for Indiana this season, Leal came to Columbus with the fewest points to his name: 27, but he had hit 55.6% (5 for 9) of his 3-point attempts. Indiana coach Mike Woodson declined to specify if the play was designed for the lightly used fourth-year senior to shoot that shot.
“That’s the shot we got,” he said. “It counts. That’s all that matters.”
Both Holtmann and Gayle said their scouting report said to not let Galloway get the ball in his right hand on drives, but it happened repeatedly as the Buckeyes failed to stop him.
“Really, not let Galloway get downhill and get to his right hand,” Gayle said. “We knew that was one of his strong suits. Just little mishaps, small attention to details we really should’ve did a lot better on. That’s rule No. 1 in basketball, to not help out the corner, and he made a great shot.”
Ohio State fails again to get a late-game shot
Friday night at Iowa, Ohio State trailed 74-73 but had the ball with less than 30 seconds left and a chance to steal a road victory. Gayle got the ball to Felix Okpara at the top of the circle, then drifted to his right to run a screening action designed to get the ball back in his hands going to his left. It was an action the Buckeyes said they’ve run hundreds of times in practice, but in this case Okpara double-dribbled to deny Gayle an opportunity to get take the shot.
After Leal’s 3-pointer, the Hoosiers called timeout with 22.4 seconds left and set up their defense. Ohio State got the ball to Battle on the right wing, hoping to get him going to his left hand off of an Okpara screen with Indiana leading 74-73.
“We had scored off that,” Holtmann said. “Jamison had scored and gotten fouled earlier. We thought we could get to the line. We liked the matchup.”
Instead, Okpara’s defender, 7-foot, 242-pound center Kel’el Ware, was able to get his arm on the ball and knock it loose for a turnover. Once again, the Buckeyes failed to even get a shot off.
When it was suggested to Holtmann that running that ball screen invited a second, large defender to disrupt the play, Holtmann said, “We had ran a baseline out of bounds and gotten to the free-throw line with him coming to his left two plays earlier.”
In both cases, neither Gayle nor Thornton, Ohio State’s primary ballhandlers, had the ball in their hands with a chance to make the play.
“That’s one of our sets for our late-game package, get Jamison the ball,” Gayle said. “They did a really good job trailing him. Made it really hard for him to make the catch. They played great on-ball defense.”
Thornton did get the final 3-point attempt on a full-court pass, but his straight-on look at the buzzer was long. He finished with 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting and did not have an assist for the first time this season.
This felt like a turning point in the season
Ohio State played itself well off the NCAA Tournament bubble with its three-game losing streak in early January, and as this most recent stretch has continued the Buckeyes have repeatedly asserted their belief that there’s still plenty of season left for things to turn around.
This week, in particular, seemed to be the time. Although Indiana and Maryland have each earned quality wins this season and are ahead of the Buckeyes in the standings, showdowns at Wisconsin and at home with Purdue loom next week. For a team on the wrong end of a losing streak, a chance to play consecutive home games felt like a real opportunity to build some momentum and, perhaps most importantly, some confidence.
Instead, it’s a fifth straight loss. Eight games remain in the regular season, but it’s getting harder to see Ohio State turning things around in time to make the season mean something.
“We’ve got the youngest team in the Big Ten,” Gayle said. “You’ve got a lot of guys who get inside their heads. It’s an easy thing to correct. A lot of manageable things we did to lose this game. We had a lot of mistakes we could have corrected. That was the only thing (postgame), for people to keep their heads up and stay together moving forward.”
Why didn’t Devin Royal play more?
A bright spot in Ohio State’s recent run of losses had been the emergence of freshman forward Devin Royal. Starting with the loss at Michigan on Jan. 15, Royal had scored 35 points in roughly 52 minutes of action on 14-of-23 (.609) shooting.
Tuesday, Royal was scoreless on 0-for-2 shooting and had one turnover and no rebounds in 6:15. He picked up three first-half fouls and did not see any second-half playing time.
Asked why Royal did not play after halftime, Holtmann said, “He got in foul trouble.”
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Indiana loss shows Ohio State still not sure how to win: 5 takeaways
