Ohio State fends off Payton Sandfort, Iowa in second round of Big Ten Tournament

MINNEAPOLIS — For a while, whenever it looked like Ohio State was going to pull away Thursday night in the Target Center, Iowa — and namely Payton Sandfort — answered.

Sandfort helped the Hawkeyes erase an eight-point deficit in the game’s opening stanza. He also prevented the Buckeyes from building a significant second-half lead in the first moments of the second half.

Eventually, Ohio State put a stop to that pattern. Jamison Battle and his 23 second-half points stood in the way of an Iowa comeback.

The Buckeyes (20-12, 9-11 Big Ten) maintained a double-digit lead down the stretch of the final frame, in part because of their frequent trips to the charity stripe, and held off the Hawkeyes (18-14, 10-10) for a 90-78 win.

Lettermen Row has Three Points from Ohio State’s second-round triumph in the Big Ten Tournament.

Nine Buckeyes players record a field goal in the first half

There were points of the 2023-24 season where it felt like if Bruce Thornton, Roddy Gayle Jr. or Battle didn’t have the ball in their hands, Ohio State wasn’t scoring. But under interim head coach Jake Diebler, Ohio State has consistently run 10-plus players deep, and that depth has shown up in the box score as well, hence the emergence of freshman forward Devin Royal and the resurgence of Baylor grad transfer guard Dale Bonner among others.

That extensive, and productive, rotation was especially evident Thursday.

Eight different Buckeyes players had a field goal by the third media timeout. And another, freshman guard Taison Chatman, etched his name into the score card with a critical 3-pointer in the back half of the opening frame.

Ohio State went into the break with 23 bench points, largely thanks to first-year wing Scotty Middleton, who pitched in 11 first-half points. Middleton was two points off his career high while shooting 4-of-4 from the field in the opening 20 minutes, including 3-of-3 from beyond the arc.

Ohio State starts on fire from 3-point range

Speaking of Middleton, he headlined a fierce 3-point shooting effort for the Buckeyes in the first half. Ohio State came into the night 176th nationally with a 34.0% clip from downtown. Then Diebler’s team knocked down 8-of-11 attempts from long range in the opening period.

Middleton’s last six games set the stage for his red-hot start Thursday. He shot 9-of-16 from deep in that span. With his three straight makes to start the Big Ten Tournament, that heater moved him to 12-of-his-last-19. Middleton now has four multi-make 3-point games in the last seven outings. He had three in his first 22 games with the program.

Thornton was the Buckeyes player who got the party from outside started. The sophomore point guard drilled a pair of 3-pointers to help fuel a 10-2 Ohio State advantage by the first media timeout. Bonner coupled a steal of Iowa guard Tony Perkins with a 3-pointer on the other end. And, maybe most notably, Chatman and Gayle dialed up back-to-back triples after Perkins made it a 34-31 game with a 3-pointer of his own.

The crafty Perkins had seven first-half points for the Hawkeyes, however, Sandfort, as mentioned above, was the one who kept Iowa in the game early. He willed Fran McCaffery’s team back in it with a quick nine points, including a pair of 3-pointers. Sandfort finished the night with a team-high 19 points after starting 4-of-5 from deep.

Jamison Battle comes to life in the second half, pilots Buckeyes to finish line

Although nine Buckeyes scored in the opening period, the one who played and didn’t grab a point was Battle, an All-Big Ten honorable mention and the Big Ten’s leader in 3-point percentage.

The fifth-year grad transfer wing from Minnesota attempted only one shot in 10 minutes of first-half action and picked up two fouls along the way.

A short drive away from his hometown of Robbinsdale, as well as the university he used to call home, Battle came to life in the final frame.

The veteran scored all 23 of his points in the second half, nine of which came at the charity stripe. As he’s so often done this season, Battle chose the right moments to attack the lane. He helped the Buckeyes reach the bonus early in the first half of the second period.

His best sequence took place with under 10 minutes to go. First he used one hand to corral an offensive rebound after a missed Thornton 3-pointer, leading to an old-fashioned 3-point play in the paint.

Then, moments later, Battle netted the other kind of 3-pointer, the silky smooth kind from the left wing.

What’s more, he put an exclamation point on the victory with a fastbreak, one-handed dunk in the game’s final minute and change as Ohio State continued to break the Iowa press.

Battle, fittingly, piloted the Buckeyes to the finish line in his hometown NBA arena, keeping the program’s NCAA Tournament hopes alive.

Battle, who also had nine rebounds, led the Buckeyes in scoring. Four other Ohio State players finished in double figures: Thornton (14), Middleton (11) and Gayle (10).