Three Points: Buckeyes keep pace with Iowa but lose road heartbreaker

An Ohio State team that had lost six of its last seven games — and scored fewer than 70 points in five of those losses — kept pace with an Iowa team that entered Friday night first in the Big Ten in adjusted tempo and second in the league in scoring.

For the second game in a row, the Buckeyes were notably better.

They just weren’t good enough.

Amid a back-and-forth affair that featured 15 ties and 10 lead changes, Ohio State found itself playing the fouling game late in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

But every time Iowa — the second-best free throw shooting team in the Big Ten — restored its three-point lead, head coach Fran McCaffery instructed his team to foul Ohio State.

In the end, the Buckeyes had no choice but to intentionally miss a free throw with 4.5 seconds remaining. Dale Bonner did just that, and Ohio State center Felix Okpara nearly reeled in the offensive rebound.

Neither team came up with the loose ball before time expired, though, and Iowa held on for a thrilling 79-77 win. For Ohio State, it was heartbreaking.

The Buckeyes came oh so close to snapping their now-15-game streak of “true” road losses.

Lettermen Row is breaking down the nail biter with Three Points.

Felix Okpara, Devin Royal make game-changing impact down low

Okpara was scoreless against Illinois. After the 87-75 defeat, head coach Chris Holtmann said he needed more from his bigs on both ends of the floor. Okpara’s offensive impact couldn’t be ignored Friday night. He delivered 10 first-half points, more than any other Buckeyes player, not to mention his three first-half rebounds, two of which came on the offensive glass. Okapara made 4-of-5 field goal attempts in the opening frame, including a late shot clock, left-handed hook to give Ohio State a 38-36 halftime lead.

Usually Zed Key is the Buckeyes’ secondary option down low. Except, while Key played only three first-half minutes this time out, freshman forward Devin Royal was in for more than half the period. During his 11 minutes of action, he matched his season high with eight points on 4-of-7 shooting. Roddy Gayle Jr. fed Royal in the paint for a two-handed dunk near the midway point of the half. Royal also showcased the ability to take matters into his own hands, escorting himself from the left block to the cup for two additional points. He even cleaned up his own blocked jumper with a push shot.

Royal played 17 minutes, his most in a Big Ten game this season. Key, on the other hand, didn’t even see the floor in the second half. That said, Royal did have a very freshman sequence in the second half, during which he committed two fouls and turnover in the span of less than a minute. Okpara rounded out the night with 14 points and eight rebounds, but he, too, had highs and lows (more on that later).

Ohio State starts both halves hot from 3-point land

Over its seven-game slide, Ohio State shot only 25% from beyond the arc, dropping to 172nd in the nation in 3-point percentage with a clip of 33.9%. But the Buckeyes began this game 6-of-10 from downtown, in large part because they hit their first three long-range attempts of the opening frame and went 3-of-4 to kick off the second period.

Jamison Battle, as he’s been wont to do this season, struck first from downtown. Then Gayle, who has emerged from his January slump, drilled a triple. And Bruce Thornton — just a 21.1% 3-point shooter in the aforementioned seven-game stretch — swished a 3-pointer as well, tying the game at 15-15 early. Fast forward to the start of the second half: Ohio State grew a four-point advantage right away following a pair of long-range makes, the first from Thornton and the next from Battle. Bonner even gave the Buckeyes a critical 3-pointer to halt an 11-4 Iowa run and knot things up at 51-51.

Ohio State misfired on five of its final six attempts from deep, but the Buckeyes clocked out 7-of-16 in that department. That’s just their third time in the last eight games with at least seven 3-pointers.

Buckeyes withstand second-half Iowa punches before falling short

Ohio State hasn’t responded to adversity well in Big Ten play, both on a macro and micro level. Holtmann said it himself. When the Buckeyes have needed to make a timely offensive push, they haven’t done it. When they’ve needed a critical defensive stop, they haven’t gotten it.

But at Iowa, Holtmann’s group finally did — more than once, actually.

Bonner’s aforementioned 3-pointer following Iowa’s early second-half run was one instance. So was a Battle 3-pointer late in the shot clock with under seven and a half minutes to go. Instead of Iowa kickstarting its transition offense — which yielded 17 fastbreak points — with a five-point lead in hand, Battle’s third and final triple made it a 63-61 game.

Then in what was maybe the best defense-offense sequence of the period for the Buckeyes, Evan Mahaffey tipped a Josh Dix pass for Ben Krikke. That led to a Thornton layup on the other end that tied things up at 67-67. Led by a combined 50 points from Tony Perkins (20), Payton Sandfort (15) and Dix (15), Iowa picked Ohio State apart with its ball screen actions.

Not that time.

Perhaps the best example of Ohio State fighting through adversity came from Okpara. After getting dunked over and then shouted at by Hawkeyes freshman center Owen Freeman earlier in the second half, a tenacious Okapara — who had five offensive rebounds in the second half — drop stepped and hammered home a dunk over Freeman.

Unfortunately for Okpara, the highlight-reel play that pulled the Buckeyes within one, 74-73, was followed by, and overshadowed by, his double dribble at the top of the arc with 24 seconds left.

At that point, Ohio State had to foul or force a steal. But Iowa’s free throw making and Ohio State’s inability to avoid a foul, namely by a ball handling Bonner late, set the stage for the final sequence.

The Buckeyes fought. They just couldn’t finish.