Embarrassing first half digs too deep a hole for Buckeyes against Michigan State
COLUMBUS — Seven and a half minutes into Sunday’s matinee between Ohio State and Michigan State, the teams had combined for as many turnovers as they had points: 10.
Things never got better for the Buckeyes in the opening frame. Ohio State scored five points over the final 8:40 of the period, a stretch that saw the Buckeyes miss 10 consecutive shots.
Meanwhile, MSU — shooting an unimpressive 40% from the floor — stitched together an 18-5 run that gave the Spartans a 13-point halftime lead in The Schottenstein Center.
Anything would have been an improvement for Ohio State in the second half after it posted an abysmal 19.2% clip in the first period. The Buckeyes did come out of the break with a jolt of energy and even pulled within five points of the Spartans. Except, the comeback bid ended there.
A five-point swing — where a Bruce Thornton steal amounted to nothing, and MSU sharpshooter Joey Hauser netted a 3-pointer directly thereafter — spelled doom for the Buckeyes.
“I think our understanding right now of winning possessions when it’s a two or three-possession game is just not where it needs to be,” Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann said postgame. “And that’s my responsibility to get them there.
“We fight some things too much.”
The Buckeyes scored once over the next five minutes of game time, letting yet another Big Ten game get away from them. Tom Izzo’s Spartans (16-9, 8-6 Big Ten) left Columbus with a 62-41 victory.
Holtmann’s Buckeyes (11-14, 3-11) have now lost six games in a row for the first time since 1997-98 when the program suffered through a 17-game skid in Jim O’Brien’s first year at the helm.
“Almost like last game, we just didn’t make shots,” Thornton said. “Kind of hard to beat a top team in the Big Ten if you don’t make shots, at the end of the day.”
The Buckeyes shot a season-low 28.3% from the field. Their 41 points were their fewest in a game since Feb. 10, 1996 when they fell to the Spartans, 55-41.
Izzo was complimentary of Holtmann going with a three-freshmen starting lineup that saw guards Roddy Gayle Jr. and Thornton, as well as forward Brice Sensabaugh, take the court for tip-off. In fact, the longtime MSU coach called it “brilliant.”
It was Ohio State’s eighth different starting lineup this season. It didn’t deliver much offense, though. Then again, no combination of Buckeyes players enjoyed sustained success Sunday.
Holtmann dipped back to a 10-man rotation, with both Tanner Holden and Eugene Brown III even sharing the floor at one point late in the first half.
“They’re playing at a much slower pace this year,” Holtmann said of MSU. “I just don’t think we handled that very well. Our offensive frustration was significant in the first half, and it dug us too deep of a hole to really climb out of.”
Holtmann later added: “I should have gotten them more ready for their defense, so I take full responsibility for that. I should have clearly had a better plan for our offensive attack.”
Ohio State, which started the first half 2-of-4 but finished the period 5-of-26, scored only two points in the paint in the opening frame. The Buckeyes rounded out the day with just 12 such points.
As a result, they wound up taking 29 3-pointers, their most in a game this season and eight more than they’ve attempted against any other Big Ten opponent in 2022-23.
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Luckily for Ohio State, MSU also started the game by jacking up too many 3-pointers. The Spartans attempted 11 in the first half and missed eight of them, including their first five.
Hauser, who recorded a game-high 22 points, accounted for two of those three triples. He was an integral part of the Spartans’ run to end the first half up 13 points.
“Joey’s playing like the kid I thought he would be when I recruited him in high school,” Izzo said. “And he’s rebounding tough, his defense is improving. I think he’s fresher.”
Ohio State came out with more “oomph” in the second half. There was a sequence before the period’s first media timeout where Buckeyes sixth-year forward Justice Sueing drew a charge, then center Zed Key scored a second-chance layup and, after that, Sueing jumped a pass from MSU guard Tyson Walker for a steal, giving the Buckeyes a chance to make it a three-possession game.
As was the case later in the period, however, the Buckeyes couldn’t capitalize on a Spartans error. Both Ohio State and MSU committed 11 turnovers, but MSU scored eight more points (14) off giveaways than Ohio State (six).
The bigger missed opportunity came when Thornton stole a Walker pass with the Buckeyes trailing by just five points. Thornton pushed the ball up to Sensabaugh. The star first-year forward had made back-to-back jumpers. This time, though, his contested layup was off the mark. And so was Key’s putback attempt.
Hauser quieted the arena with a 3-pointer on the other end. Although Gayle cut Ohio State’s deficit to six, Walker provided MSU’s next answer: two more field goals.
That kickstarted a 21-6 surge — fittingly capped with a pair of Hauser 3-pointers — to end the game.
Ohio State has lost 11 of its last 12 games. Of those 11 losses, nine have been decided by single digits.
But Sunday marked the Buckeyes’ largest margin of defeat this season.
So where do they go from here? Holtmann was asked postgame about what his realistic goal is for Ohio State over the final six games of the Big Ten slate.
“Growth,” Holtmann said. “I think growth in the areas of moving the ball, sharing the ball, finding the the open man, rebounding the ball a little bit better than what we have consistently. And then having a consistent defensive 40 minutes with multiple sustaining efforts.
“Those are the things that we’ve addressed.”
