Buckeyes pummeled on road by Maryland in Big Ten opener
COLUMBUS — The Big Ten slate could not have opened on a worse note for Jake Diebler and Ohio State basketball. The Buckeyes were crushed by Maryland in a game that was never close.
The Terrapins sprinted out to an early lead and never looked back. By halftime, the Buckeyes were down 33, the largest halftime deficit in a Big Ten game since the 1996-1997 season, according to the Big Ten Network broadcast. At the end of the game, it wasn’t much better.
Final score: Maryland 83, Ohio State 59.
Second-year forward Devin Royal had 18 to lead the Buckeyes, while freshman guard John Mobley Jr. added 15. The Buckeyes shot a poor 4 of 18 (22 percent) from 3-point range.
Just a few days after losing at the buzzer to Pittsburgh at home in a crushing loss, Ohio State was never competitive with the Terps, turning in its worst performance of the young season — and of the first year of the Diebler era.
The bad news? It’s not going to get much easier. The Buckeyes will face a good Rutgers team on Saturday in the Schottenstein Center. It’s a chance for Diebler’s team to get to .500 in Big Ten play, and it certainly needs the win. Because after the two-game stretch of Big Ten play, Ohio State will travel to Atlanta, Georgia to face a top-five Auburn team, then face top-10 Kentucky in Madison Square Garden a week later.
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The rest of December isn’t getting any easier for this team.
Ohio State is off for a few days before its next game. The rest of the December slate is as follows:
Dec. 7 vs. Rutgers
Dec. 14 vs. Auburn (State Farm Arena, Atlanta, Georgia)
Dec. 17 vs. Valparaiso
Dec. 21 vs. Kentucky (Madison Square Garden, New York, New York)
Dec. 29 vs. Indiana State
Ohio State already has a win over a ranked team for an early-season resume booster. That came in the opener against Texas. Then the Buckeyes lost at Texas A&M a couple of weeks ago to fall back out of the rankings before winning a couple of easy nonconference games.
This was yet another step up in competition for the Buckeyes after a nonconference loss, and they didn’t pass the initial Big Ten test — at all.
