Buckeyes bomb again, but keep it close
The decision was made. Trailing by four points with less than 30 seconds to play on Thursday, Ohio State was going for a 3-pointer. On a designed action, the Buckeyes got it to Sean McNeil, the West Virginia transfer who took the pass going to his left and fired with 20 seconds left.
It didn’t fall. And neither did any of the ensuing four attempts by the Buckeyes, who, in need of a bucket, a stop and another bucket instead ran down the clock on a 75-71 loss to Penn State with a fruitless, all-encompassing final possession that was deflating.
McNeil, a 37.2% 3-point shooter entering the game, missed first. Then freshman Bruce Thornton, also a 37.2% 3-point shooter, got the rebound, got to the arc and missed. Justice Sueing pulled down his game-high 10th rebound and found McNeil for the next miss. Brice Sensabaugh came up with the rebound before he, a team-best 43.5% 3-point shooter, missed.
That left McNeil, who got the fourth offensive rebound of the possession, one final chance, but his shot with three seconds left followed suit and missed. Sensabaugh got the rebound, the buzzer sounded and a feeling of disbelief settled over Value City Arena.
What the heck had just happened?
“It’s extremely difficult,” Thornton, who finished with 19 points, said. “All the guys that took shots hit those shots. For them not to go down it was kind of difficult. For me, seeing me, Brice and Sean shoot, at least one of us would’ve made it, but that wasn’t the case. That last 20 seconds were kind of difficult.”
So have been the past 33 days and counting. One more made 3-pointer wouldn’t have made the difference between winning and losing. But had any one of those first few final attempts gone done, the Buckeyes would’ve had a chance to extend the game and potentially find a way to win. Instead, it was an awkward ending to what is now the ninth straight loss and 14th in the past 15 games for the Buckeyes.
One possession earlier, Ohio State trailed 73-69 when coach Chris Holtmann called timeout and drew up a play. They got the ball to sixth-year forward Sueing on an isolation play, and he scored in the paint with 33 seconds left to get within two points. Then, once Penn State got the ball across midcourt, Sueing fouled Jalen Pickett to stop the clock with 28.5 seconds left.
Pickett hit both, setting the final sequence in motion.
“I thought we could get a quick two and foul, and we did that,” Holtmann said. “We did need a 3 there. We got him coming to his left. We kind of got it on the matchup we want. We knew they were going to switch one through five, and then we had some clean looks off the rebounds. I don’t have a big issue with any of those looks.”
Ohio State finished with 13 offensive rebounds, “but it felt like 12 on that last possession,” Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry said.
With those five misses,
Ohio State finished 8 for 23 (34.8%) from 3-point range. Until the final 20 seconds, it was 44.4% from deep, but that still didn’t match up with the free-shooting Nittany Lions. In a game in which it set a program record for made 3s in a season, Penn State went 10 for 19 (52.6%) from deep.