Thornton: Buckeyes played more freely in Michigan despite another loss
It’s not ANN ARBOR, MICH. — exactly been a secret that something has been wrong with the Ohio State men’s basketball team for the better part of a month.
Since a blowout win at Northwestern on New Year’s Day, the Buckeyes have embedded themselves in a losing streak the likes of which the program hasn’t seen in nearly two decades. Sunday afternoon at the Crisler Center, Michigan became the latest to add to Ohio State’s litany of woes as it handed the Buckeyes a 77-69 loss, the program’s ninth in 10 games.
The Wolverines scored 22 seconds into the game and held that lead for the duration, building their lead as high as 13 points with six minutes to play and maintaining at least a two-possession lead for the final 13 minutes.
On paper, it looks like all the others — another loss for the Buckeyes, and another one by single digits. Along the way, though, freshman point guard and burgeoning team captain Bruce Thornton broke out of his own personal slump with a 22-point effort.
So, to an extent, did sixthyear forward and captain Justice Sueing, whose 14 points were the most he’s totaled since he had 21 in a loss at Maryland on Jan. 8. And across the board, Thornton said he felt there was something different about how the Buckeyes played against the Wolverines.
Not necessarily better. Just different.
“I didn’t feel like we played better, but we played freely,” Thornton said. “It wasn’t so much tense (that) people were overthinking certain situations. We were just playing the game, playing the game we’ve been doing since a young age. Free-flowing.”
It wasn’t enough to snap the losing streak, and there’s no guarantee that playing with a better spirit will translate to Thursday’s home game against Northwestern. But it was an acknowledgement that, as the losses have piled up, the Buckeyes have been feeling the strain and allowing it to affect their play.
“Our plan was to be more aggressive and a lot of guys playing more free,” Sueing said. “We got the ball moving a lot better than the last few games. It’s something to build on, but we’ve got work to do.”
It’s well past the point of the season where teams will talk about playing for moral victories, and there was none of that from coach Chris Holtmann, Sueing or Thornton after the loss to the Wolverines.
This remains a team seemingly incapable of stringing enough consistent effort on both ends to finish a game with more points than its opponent, and with eight Big Ten games remaining, the Buckeyes have significant work to do just to avoid a bottom-four finish and playing on the first day of the conference tournament.