Harris shines as Ohio State downs Michigan
OSU secures double bye in Big Ten Tournament
Less than four minutes into the first quarter, Ohio State was in trouble.
The No. 16 Buckeyes, playing their final road game of the Big Ten regular season, were trailing at No. 12 Michigan by eight points just 3:19 after tipoff. After grinding out a win at Penn State on Thursday, the Wolverines presented a tougher test for Ohio State, and in the early going the Buckeyes didn’t respond well.
Ohio State coach Kevin Mcguff called a timeout with 6:41 left in the first quarter, unwilling to wait until the media timeout that comes with under 5 minutes left. Redshirt junior guard Rikki Harris made a 3-pointer on the first possession after the timeout, and the basket flipped the Buckeyes out of their opening slump.
By the 3:48 mark of the first quarter, Ohio State took the lead, and though Michigan pulled back in front shortly after, the Buckeyes were back in front by the end of the quarter and held on from there. Ohio State won 74-61, led by a career-high 23 points from Harris, for its first win over a ranked opponent since the last matchup against the Wolverines on New Year’s Eve.
The Buckeyes went 0-4 against ranked competition between the two wins against Michigan.
“I thought we looked different tonight,” Mcguff said. “Against Penn State in our last game, we had some good stretches and then we just had some awful stretches. That’s what we talked about. It was like, ‘Hey, we’ve just got to get it closer to 40 minutes, doing what we
did at Penn State.’ I thought we competed for 40 minutes, for sure, and played pretty well for most of the game.”
Both teams were without key players. Ohio State continues to play without senior guard Jacy Sheldon. Laila Phelia, who was the Wolverines’ leading scorer when she got hurt two weeks ago, was out with a lower body injury.
Harris has shouldered a large share of the point guard responsibilities in Sheldon’s absence, to middling results, but on Monday Harris did just about everything for the Buckeyes until she fouled out with 2:36 left. She went 3 for 4 from beyond the perimeter, 6 of 8 from the free throw line and grabbed four rebounds while recording five assists and seven steals.
Harris’ three out of the early timeout set the tone for what was to come. Ohio State made eight straight attempted threes in the first half and went 10-of-19 total from 3-point range. Senior guard Taylor Mikesell made four of them, finishing with 12 points, and sophomore guard Taylor Thierry contributed two threes among her total 15 points.
With the win, OSU secured the No. 4 seed — the final spot that gets a double bye — for the Big Ten tourney, which begins March 1 in Minneapolis. Ohio State ends the regular season against Maryland at Value City Arena on Friday.