Shell shocked: Once again, Ohio State falls to Maryland in road game
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Opening the second half with the ball and the lead, Ohio State fed freshman Brice Sensabaugh in the right corner.
Feeling the advantage, the three-time Big Ten freshman of the week used his size and skill to back down his defender, get to his spot in the paint and rise up for the basket. But right before he did so, Sensabaugh shuffled his feet, negating the field goal that swished through the net.
It was a sign of what was to come. Inside what has become a house of horrors for Ohio State, the No. 24 Buckeyes (10-4, 2-2 Big Ten) went scoreless for nearly six minutes to open the second half, offered little defensive resistance to Maryland (11-5, 2-3) and took yet another in a series of ugly losses inside the Xfinity Center.
The final: Maryland 80, Ohio State 73. The Buckeyes have now lost consecutive games while Maryland entered having lost five of its last seven, scoring an average of 60.4 points per game during that stretch.
The Terrapins moved to 6-1 against the Buckeyes on their home court since joining the Big Ten, with the lone Ohio State win coming during the COVID-affected 2020-21 season played without fans in the stands. This one didn’t have the Maryland student section as they remain on winter break, but those who were there made plenty of noise during the opening minutes of the first half.
Ahead 39-34 at the break, Ohio State turned the ball over four times before it attempted a shot. Two of them were committed by freshman point guard Bruce Thornton against Maryland’s press on consecutive possessions, and the Buckeyes would have turnovers on five of their first six possessions after turning it over only four times during the first half. By the time they scored, when Isaac Likekele corralled a Thornton miss and laid it in with 14:17 left, Maryland had charged out to a 48-39 lead thanks to a 14-0 run.
"I thought they were just tougher that first five-minute stretch," OSU coach Chris Holtmann said. "More active. Played harder in that stretch. I thought we closed the first half really well. We obviously opened the (second) half really poorly. I didn’t want to burn a timeout, but obviously we needed to."
The Terrapins made 11 of their first 16 shots to open the half and build a 60-46 lead. Ohio State wouldn't go quietly, pulling within three on four occasions, but it couldn't get the stop needed to complete the comeback. The final one came with 2:40 left on a Roddy Gayle pull-up jumper, but Hakim Hart hit a free throw to answer and push it back to a two-possession game.
Ohio State was without starting center Zed Key, who suffered a left shoulder sprain last time out against Purdue. He is expected to miss perhaps a week, The Dispatch learned, and he watched the game in street clothes but without any noticeable brace on the shoulder.
"He’s a good player and we missed him," Holtmann said. "We missed his physicality. We missed his ability to post him and play through him at times. Certainly felt him, but take nothing away from Maryland."
Sensabaugh led the Buckeyes with 22 points on 7 of 18 shooting but fouled out with 46.8 seconds to play. Maryland's Jahmir Young led all scorers with a career-high 30 points and 11 rebounds.
A total of 46 fouls were called, 28 on Ohio State and 18 on Maryland.
"It definitely impacts us," sixth-year forward and captain Justice Sueing, who had 21 points, said. "We’re really good offensively, but regardless in the Big Ten we’re going to have to be able to get stops, be able to play straight up, be able to guard our man, play as a team defensively. That’s what it comes down to. Regardless of what we feel is the right call or not, we’ve got to go out there and convert our game plan defensively and that’ll help us get us going offensively."
When 6-1, 185-pound Jahmir Young grabbed his third offensive rebound in less than a minute, scored and gave Maryland a 31-26 lead, Holtmann called timeout with 3:47 left. As the Buckeyes huddled up, they were reeling from a rough stretch of offense during which they had missed seven of eight field goals, turned it over twice and missed the front end of a one-and-one. The Terrapins hadn’t fared much better, but after Young missed two free throws, grabbed his own offensive rebound, drew the foul, hit the next two attempts and followed that with the offensive putback on the next possession, the Buckeyes looked to be at a tipping point.
Instead, in a half marred by foul calls on both sides, Tanner Holden drew one, went to the line for a one-and-one situation and made both to stem the tide. And after trailing by five, Holden’s free throws with 3:34 left marked the first of six straight possessions on which Ohio State would score, build a lead and take a 39-34 advantage into the half.
The final points came from Sensabaugh, who drew a foul with 49.3 seconds remaining and hit both free throws. It gave him 10 at the break, one behind Sueing for the team lead, and helped the Buckeyes put some distance between a frustrating opening 15 minutes to the game.
It wasn’t just the offense that finally got going for Ohio State to close the half, though. Maryland missed 14 of its final 15 shots including three on its final possession.
"Those last five minutes of the first half was what we needed to play with for the remaining 20 minutes of the game, but they blitzed us and we just didn’t have the fight, that heart that we needed to come out of an away game here at Maryland," Sueing said.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Shell shocked, again: Ohio State loses at Maryland
