‘Tougher’ Gophers knock Buckeyes from peak
MINNEAPOLIS – The peak was gone, and Roddy Gayle and the Buckeyes were low — literally and figuratively.
In its first game since an emotionally charged home upset of No. 2 Purdue on Sunday, Ohio State returned to the road and again took a loss. In a game they never led, the Buckeyes (15-12, 5-11 Big Ten) battled throughout but couldn’t overcome a poor start and close to the first half in an 88-79 loss to Minnesota 17-9, 8-7) on Thursday night.
The teams posted nearly identical shooting numbers. Ohio State was 29 for 57 (50.9%) from the floor, 7 for 23 (30.4%) from 3 and 14 for 18 (77.8%) from the line. Minnesota, aided by the Buckeyes fouling late to extend the game, were 28 for 56 (50.0%) overall, 8 for 19 (42.1%) from 3 and 24 for 31 (77.4%) from the foul line.
It added up to a ninepoint loss for the Buckeyes, and afterward Gayle said some of the lessons they hoped they had learned about themselves in beating Purdue hadn’t followed them into Williams Arena, with its elevated court and locker rooms set into the sub-floor level of the building.
“I feel like Minnesota was the tougher team,” Gayle said. “I feel like we’ve got to bring more energy and more pop, especially on the road. We can’t let that Purdue game determine who we are. We’ve got to build on that. We will have a much better approach going into Michigan State.”
The next road game arrives Sunday, and the Buckeyes will take up residence in Minneapolis for a bit. Rather than fly home and then to East Lansing, Ohio State stayed in town, practiced Friday and headed to Michigan State today.
Interim coach Jake Diebler, who falls to 1-1 since taking over when Chris Holtmann was fired Feb. 14, has preached pace and accountability from his players while he’s been running practice. Postgame, he said the Buckeyes had prepared accordingly for the game despite what the final score showed.
“I don’t think our guys felt like this was going to be any easier, and we practiced really well leading into it,” he said. “Sometimes maybe guys are searching for answers when a guy goes this way and sometimes it’s as simple as we didn’t have the necessary urgency to start the game, but I didn’t notice the last few days necessarily a hangover from the Purdue game. We certainly didn’t have the urgency that we needed to start the game.”
Just like in Sunday’s game against Purdue, Ohio State dug itself an early deficit. Unlike in that game, this would prove insurmountable.
Dawson Garcia opened the game with a jumper on the left baseline, and after Felix Okpara missed an ill-advised shot near the rim Minnesota’s Mike Mitchell Jr. hit a 3-pointer. That made it 5-0 only three possessions in, and when Evan Mahaffey was blocked at the rim by Pharrel Payne it led to a Garcia 3-pointer from the top of the circle.
Just like that, the Buckeyes trailed by three possessions only three possessions into the game. They would be playing catchup for the remainder.
“I thought we gave them some clean looks early to start the game, which let them get into a little bit of a rhythm,” Diebler said. “We wanted to make sure we guarded the 3-point line well, because we knew what they were capable of, and we didn’t execute that well enough.”
Ohio State would tie the game at 30 and again at 32 but could never get over the hump in part because it couldn’t get enough stops. An example:
Trailing by 11 during the second half, Ohio State got the ball to Zed Key, who hit a jumper in the paint on one of Bruce Thornton’s six assists. Garcia missed a 3-pointer, but Payne outhustled everyone for the long offensive rebound, leading to an Elijah Hawkins 3-pointer.
Garcia’s miss came with three seconds left on the shot clock after the Buckeyes had played solid defense on the possession only to allow the offensive rebound and the 3-pointer.
“It felt like (that happened) a lot,” Diebler said. “We’ve got to continue to guard without fouling. I think fouling has been an issue for us at times this season. We guarded for long stretches of individual possessions, we just weren’t quite able to finish them the way we needed to. You just can’t have multiples of those.”
Ohio State committed 23 fouls, five of which came during the final 1:36 as the Buckeyes tried to extend the contest by stopping the clock.