Despite late push, Ohio State face plants against Minnesota

COLUMBUS — Ohio State came into Thursday night’s home game against Big Ten bottom dweller Minnesota still ranked No. 1 in KenPom adjusted offensive efficiency.

It sure didn’t look like it.

The Buckeyes shot a season-low 40.0% from the floor, and if it wasn’t for 18 second-chance points and a few missed free throws by Minnesota down the stretch, head coach Chris Holtmann’s team wouldn’t have hung around against a Golden Gophers squad still searching for its first win in Big Ten play.

After scoring four second-chance points and taking its first lead since the game’s opening moments, Ohio State notched just two points over the next eight minutes of action.

That was enough time for Minnesota to get back in the driver’s seat. The Buckeyes made a late push, tying the game at 67-67 in the final seconds after Gophers center Dawson Garcia missed a pair of shots at the charity stripe. But a brutal foul call on Buckeyes point guard Bruce Thornton, who contested Ta’lon Cooper at the cup and appeared to get ball, allowed Cooper to sink the game-winning free throw at the line.

And, so, Minnesota never gave back the keys, pulling a 70-67 upset at The Schottenstein Center.

1.7 seconds left: Minnesota 68, Ohio State 67.

Brutal foul call here in the Schott.

Bruce Thornton went for the block of Ta'lon Cooper and was whistled despite appearing to get ball.

Cooper makes 1-of-2 at the FT line. pic.twitter.com/R4w3upXzVC

— Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom) January 13, 2023

“Nobody probably thought we could come in here and win,” Minnesota second-year head coach Ben Johnson said. “But they understood we were playing good basketball — we just weren’t closing games. And our challenge was to continue to play how we were playing and not stray from that.

“And then just find a way when it’s time to win the game to win the game.”

Ohio State (10-6, 2-3 Big Ten) rolled with a small ball, center-less starting lineup against Minnesota (7-8, 1-4). Junior wing Eugene Brown III made his first start of the season in his fifth game back from a concussion recovery that kept him out for almost two months.

It didn’t work.

Zed Key — wearing a compression sleeve of the left shoulder he sprained against Purdue last week — subbed in less than three minutes after tip and ended up playing 30 minutes. That didn’t give Ohio State a spark, either. At least initially.

“Zed wasn’t able to practice the last couple of days,” Holtmann said. “Looking back on it, I think I made a mistake playing him too long.”

The Gophers, who entered averaging a Big Ten-worst 64.3 points per game, put up 37 in the first half, a period in which they led for 16:33. The Buckeyes were giving up an array of open looks to Minnesota, and that made things a whole lot easier for a group that came in 199th in effective field goal percentage (49.5%), according to KenPom.

Meanwhile, on the other end, the Buckeyes kicked things off by going 2-of-10 from the floor. Forwards Brice Sensabaugh and Justice Sueing missed at the cup, and Thornton committed a turnover.

“Our offense wasn’t clicking today,” West Virginia grad transfer guard Sean McNeil said. “I mean, just from the jump, we didn’t really seem like we wanted to play or be out there.”

Minnesota grew its lead to 19-10 before the midway point of the frame, thanks to back-to-back 3-pointers from Jamison Battle and Cooper.

It was freshman center Felix Okpara who unlocked Ohio State’s offense. With defense.

An Okpara block led to a McNeil 3-pointer, and an Okpara steal led to a Tanner Holden and-one dunk that saw him hang on the rim for good measure.

But, shortly after that, Garcia beat Okpara inside on consecutive possessions. The Buckeyes had no answer for Garcia in the back half of the opening frame, when the 6-foot-11 big man rattled off 12 straight points for the Gophers. He scored on a pump fake, drew fouls in the paint and flexed his range with a 3-pointer over the outstretched arm of Key.

Switching to a zone defense, however, helped the Buckeyes orchestrate a 12-6 surge over the final 6:30 of the period to go into halftime only trailing, 37-35.

That stretch featured a nifty iso jumper from Sensabaugh, the second tip-in of the night from Key and six straight points from McNeil — the first three from beyond the arc, the next three at the charity stripe.

Garcia began the second half with another scoring spree. He accounted for seven of Minnesota’s first nine points of the period and wound up with a game-high and season-high 28 points, not to mention nine rebounds.

The Buckeyes didn’t have an answer for Garcia, who is playing his third season with a different program — the former McDonald’s All-American started his career at Marquette, then went to North Carolina and now is back home at Minnesota.

Ohio State did, however, climb back into the game. Two Thornton 3-pointers helped. But second-chance scores from Brown and Sensabaugh, the latter of whom completed an and-one, pulled the Buckeyes ahead.

That lead was short-lived. It last 54 seconds, to be exact.

Cue a 10-0 Minnesota run that saw Taurus Samuels and Cooper both knock down 3-pointers.

“Defensively, we just kind of had some lapses,” McNeil said. “Losing our man and maybe ball watching a little bit. They got a lot of good looks. They hit a lot of them, too. They shot it really well tonight.

“When you let teams get going like that, it’s tough to come back from.”

Ohio State very nearly came back, though.

Five Minnesota misses from the free throw line are a big reason why. That’s been a pain point for Johnson’s team, which is 360th nationally in free throw percentage (59.2%).

Led by Sensabaugh, who scored eight of his 18 points in the final five minutes, the Buckeyes knotted the score with eight seconds remaining.

Minnesota hadn’t logged a field goal since the 5:15 mark. But the Gophers didn’t need one. Not with the whistle Cooper drew from Thornton on his way up to the cup.

“It looked like a clean block,” Holtmann said. “But we shouldn’t have had ourselves in that position. Officials made the call.”

Cooper hit the second of two free throws to give Minnesota a 68-67 lead with 1.7 seconds left. Ohio State’s ensuing, full-court inbound soared out of bounds. And the Gophers cemented their victory at the charity stripe, handing the Buckeyes their third straight loss.

“I feel like this is our first time facing adversity,” Oklahoma State grad transfer Isaac Likekele said. “So it should be good for us to learn how to get up out of this. And to really just stick together as a team.”

In a week, Ohio State went from having the No. 1 team in the country on the ropes to losing three games in a row.

When Holtmann was asked what this Ohio State team has showed him that gives him confidence the Buckeyes can turn things around, he offered these words:

“I think that’ll get decided here in this next month.”