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With loss at Michigan, Ohio State dips below .500

IMG_7408by:Andy Backstrom•02/05/23•

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Zed Key by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
(Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It was the Hunter Dickinson show at Crisler Center Sunday afternoon.

Zed Key, Felix Okpara, Eugene Brown III? It didn’t matter who Ohio State matched up against the 7-foot-1 Michigan center. Dickinson was winning in the paint.

The Wolverines’ leading scorer bullied his way for 26 points and 11 rebounds.

“We wanted to force him to take some tougher shots,” Buckeyes forward Justice Sueing said postgame. “I think that’s ultimately what went wrong in our game plan. A lot of his shots, I feel like, were just easy, over-the-top shots on us.

“But we wanted to force him to take some tougher shots, whether we were coming on the double, trying to force him to pass it out. We were successful a couple of times on those rotations but not enough for us to win tonight.”

Because of 12 free throws, a two-rebound advantage and only one first-half turnover, Ohio State hung around for the first 30 minutes or so of the rivalry contest. A breakthrough, career-high 22-point performance from freshman point guard Bruce Thornton helped, too.

Except Ohio State finished below 42% from the field for the sixth time this season, never led and —despite cutting its deficit to three points three times in the first six minutes of the second half — couldn’t stack stops when it needed them most.

Michigan (13-10, 7-5 Big Ten) distanced itself in the back half of the second period for a 77-69 win.

Ohio State (11-12, 3-9) has now lost nine of its last 10 games. The Buckeyes haven’t been below .500 this late in the season since 2003-04, Jim O’Brien’s final year as head coach.

Current Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann returned to his season-opening starting five: Thornton, fellow guards Sean McNeil and Isaac Likekele as well as the front court pairing of Sueing and Key.

So, for just the second time in the last 15 games, Buckeyes leading scorer Brice Sensabaugh came off the bench. Hotmann explained postgame that Sensabaugh is still going to maintain “starter’s minutes,” but the sixth-year Buckeyes frontman noted that he was trying to make sure his star freshmen wouldn’t run into foul trouble again.

Sensabaugh ended up fouling out for the second game in a row and fifth time this season, but he was on the floor for 26 minutes, 10 more than he was in Thursday’s home defeat to Wisconsin.

Sensabaugh, who shot just 4-of-14 from the field, almost traded places with his classmate Thornton. The Buckeyes’ freshman point guard hadn’t reached double figures since Jan. 12 against Minnesota. Embracing what he called a “free spirit” of play, Thornton piled up a career-high 22 points on 10-of-13 shooting.

That snapped a 13-game streak where Sensabaugh was the Buckeyes’ top scorer.

“When you lose yourself in competing, and that’s who Bruce is, sometimes you struggle, but other times you just play well,” Holtmann said. “And he was able to make some shots. But I thought, more than anything, he competed on both ends.”

Thornton certainly gave the Buckeyes a much-needed lift, however, Michigan got an even stronger kick from its supporting cast. Kobe Bufkin and Dug McDaniel — underclassmen guards who were both hovering around a 30% clip from 3-point territory this season — each knocked down a pair of triples and rounded out the day with a combined 21 points. Joey Baker joined in on the party from downtown, bettering his season average with two 3-pointers and eight points.

The Wolverines, who led by as many as 11 points in the first half, converted 8-of-23 attempts from beyond the arc. That’s where they started.

McDaniel and Bufkin delivered back-to-back 3-pointers, and, soon after, Dickinson scored a quick six points, staking Michigan to an early, 12-6 advantage.

Sensabaugh and Sueing were a big reason why the Buckeyes didn’t lose grip of Sunday’s game in the first half. That duo teamed up for 10 free throw attempts in the opening frame. They made eight of them.

What really got Ohio State back in the contest, though, was an 8-0 run. The sequence featured a 3-pointer and floater from Thornton, a technical free throw from McNeil and a 16-foot jumper from Key.

That made it a 34-31 game. Unfortunately for the Buckeyes, three was Michigan’s magic number.

From that point forward, the Wolverines didn’t let Ohio State any closer than three points.

“I thought there were some stretches of really good play,” Holtmann said. “I still think some of the issues that have challenged us — inability to get a stop when it’s maybe a three- or five point game, too many shots over length, not playing off two feet — shows both, in some cases, our inexperience together and our youth.

“But those two things come to mind in preventing us from being able to really put significant game pressure on them.”

After Ohio State kept flirting with a one-possession game in the early moments of the second half — a sequence that started with a chase-down block by Sueing and, shortly after, a steal and score by Thornton — Michigan pulled away.

During an 18-8 Wolverines run, who else but Dickinson poured in eight points. By the end of that surge, Michigan was up, 68-55, recording its largest lead of the day.

The freshman tandem of Thornton and Sensabaugh fueled Ohio State the rest of the way, pacing the Buckeyes to a 48.3% clip in the second half. The problem was, Michigan shot 46.2% in the second half.

Ohio State needed a bigger discrepancy than that, and hence better defense, to stage a comeback in Ann Arbor.

“We couldn’t get a stop when we really needed to,” Thornton said.

In turn, the Buckeyes couldn’t stop the bleeding Sunday amid what’s now their second four-plus-game Big Ten losing streak this season.

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