Isaac Likekele shares key to offensive success against Maryland

Isaac Likekele and the entire Ohio State team has has a rough Big Ten slate for most of the year. But the team has found some juice at the end of the season here, first defeating Illinois before taking down Maryland on Wednesday during Senior Night.

The Terrapins entered on a little but of a hot streak but the Buckeyes offense, run by Likekele, led Ohio State to a 73-62 win.

“These guys make it easier on me,” Likekele said after the game. “Honestly, they move around, cut. We got so many well shooters so honestly they make it easy on me to give them shots and stuff.”

Likekele has 11 points on 4-for-4 shooting while also dishing out a team-high four assists.

He wasn’t the only one to have an efficient and productive day. Six Buckeyes players all finished in double figures as the team shot 48.0% from the field and a perfect 20-for-20 from the charity stripe.

Justice Sueing led the way with 15 points while center Felix Okpara had a double-double of 12 pointd and 12 boards. The team’s work in the post was crucial to the victory.

“Then when it comes to just scoring on posts and different things of that nature, shoutout coach JD and other coaches Coach Holt, Coach Owens, their putting our confidence into scoring down there and just trying to work down that, being aggressive down there,” Likekele said. “Fortunately it was able to work today.”

Isaac Likekele, other happy for Senior Day victory over Maryland

Isaac Likekele wasn’t the only Ohio State player to discuss the team’s victory over Maryland.

Sean McNeil, who finished with 10 points in his Senior Day, said there was a different energy to the way he and his team approached the game.

“I haven’t lost on Senior Night,” McNeil said. “This was the last one here. So, we came out with a different look in our eyes for sure. We wanted this one bad.”

Head coach Chris Holtmann agreed.

“I thought they had a look in their eye tonight. It felt like, obviously we’ve lost on senior day before. We lost last year on senior day. Emotions can get the best of you. But senior day is so unique right now, especially with the Covid year. It’s like, who is a senior, who’s not a senior, what’s it look like, how do you do senior day given all that? But we have a guy like Justice who’s been here for several years. And we wanted him to really go out on a great note — as well as those other guys — but obviously a guy that’s been here this long, he wanted to go out on a win and he did a great job,” Holtmann said.