Buckeyes pick up the pace, blow by New Orleans after sloppy start

COLUMBUS — Dale Bonner was everywhere for Ohio State in the opening frame against New Orleans Thursday night. He shot only 2-of-8, including 0-of-4 from deep, in his 13 minutes of first-half action, but he recorded five points, matched his season high of five rebounds and added two steals.

Most importantly, he snapped an 0-of-8 field goal skid for the Buckeyes after New Orleans — a 23.5-point underdog — took a 15-14 lead with a fastbreak dunk by guard Jamond Vincent.

Bonner got to the cup for two points, jumpstarting a 17-2 run for Ohio State. Bonner was locked in on all 94 feet of the hardwood, and his energy was a sign of things to come for the rest of his squad, which was without starting center Felix Okpara and head coach Chris Holtmann, both of whom missed the game with illness.

Under the direction of associate head coach and offensive coordinator Jake Diebler, the Buckeyes began to push the pace in transition after New Orleans misses — and there were a lot of those. The Privateers, now 1-7 against Division I opponents this season, finished a mere 12-of-48 from the field.

Bonner and Roddy Gayle Jr. spearheaded a lockdown effort guarding the Southland conference’s leading scorer, Jordan Johnson. He didn’t come close to touching his league-best 23.1 points per game.

Meanwhile, freshman forward Devin Royal headlined an exceptional night on the offensive glass for an Ohio State team that’s first in the Big Ten in offensive rebounding percentage. Ohio State logged 20 second-chance points and outscored New Orleans, 64-21, after that short-lived Privateers lead in the first half.

The bench put a bow on a 78-36 win, the Buckeyes’ 10th victory of the season, in their final game before a holiday break. Four Ohio State players clocked out in double figures: Jamison Battle (17 points), Zed Key (16 points) Bruce Thornton (11 points) and Bonner (10 points).

Thornton, who left the game in the second half with an apparent left foot injury, returned to the bench after being evaluated in the locker room. Diebler said postgame that Thornton was cleared to return at that time. He didn’t need to, however.

It was all Buckeyes down the stretch.

But, initially, Ohio State (10-2, 1-1 Big Ten) found itself in a rock fight. Again. Last week’s against UCLA in the CBS Sports Classic was expected. That was against a top-five scoring defense.

This was not. In fact, New Orleans (5-7) came into the night allowing 76.2 points per game. Ohio State began 5-of-22 from the floor while committing six turnovers.

The Buckeyes’ three-headed scoring attack of Thornton, Gayle and Battle was quiet. Battle sunk Ohio State’s first bucket but didn’t score again until the final five minutes of the period.

There was a stretch near the midway point of the half where Gayle — who notched four giveaways and just two assists — lost his handle before briefly regaining it and flinging a pass intended for Thornton out of bounds. Then New Orleans guard Jah Short blocked Thornton. And on the next Buckeyes possession, Thornton air-balled a 3-pointer.

That all happened in the span of one minute and 27 seconds.

Ohio State was staring at a meager 14 first-half points with under six minutes to go in the opening period.

“I felt like defensively their switching and attacking our dribble when we were driving gave us some problems. And, to be honest, we didn’t play fast enough,” Diebler said. “We didn’t change ends quickly enough. We talked about taking advantage of transition, we talked about playing with great pace and doing it consistently throughout the course of the game.

“We didn’t do that to start. But I think you saw, when we did, how we were able to open things up and capitalize.”

Bonner got the ball rolling, but Battle’s scoring fueled the half-ending surge. The Minnesota transfer tallied nine rebounds and four assists to go along with his team-leading 17 points, and that prolific performance took off with back-to-back 3-pointers. The second caused New Orleans head coach Mark Slessinger to call a timeout.

Privateers forward Tyson Jackson scored out of the break, but that hardly stopped the bleeding. Thornton connected on a fallaway, mid-range jumper and then found a wide-open Evan Mahaffey in the paint for one of Mahaffey’s three dunks. Tack on layups from Bonner and Thornton, and the Diebler-led Buckeyes entered intermission with a suddenly-commanding 31-17 advantage.

Key and Mahaffey teamed up for Ohio State’s first four makes in the back half of play. That included the first of four second-half dunks for Key, who was an efficient 6-of-8 from the field and worked through four fouls in his first start of the season, filling in for the under-the-weather Okpara.

As Ohio State created more distance between itself and New Orleans in the second period, Diebler experimented with different rotations. One consisted of Thornton, Gayle, Bonner, Royal and freshman center Austin Parks, who checked in at the 13:22 mark.

Although that lineup was fleeting, due to Thornton’s injury scare, it teased what would be a reserve-filled ending to a lopsided Buckeyes win.

The story of Thursday night is incomplete without further highlighting Royal, who was even more impactful than his four points, seven rebounds, two assists and one steal suggest. That theft turned into a breakaway dunk for the Pickerington Central product.

Later on, he created not one but two extra possessions with saves near the baseline to set up tic-tac-toe passing and, ultimately, another dunk from Key.

Battle dialed up the heat with three 3-pointers in the span of three minutes to give him five long-range field goals and Ohio State a 70-33 lead.

Both Parks and second-year walk-on Colby Baumann netted their first Ohio State points at the free throw line. Bowen Hardman put the exclamation point on the resounding victory with his sixth career 3-pointer.

Ohio State turned what was an embarrassing opening half into, first, a 14-point halftime lead and then an impressive 42-point win. Without its head coach or its starting center.

“In situations like this, your program’s culture comes forward,” said Diebler, who also led Ohio State to a win as acting head coach in the 2021-22 season. “And I thought our guys stepped up. Our togetherness, specifically on the defensive side, was high level. We played with physicality, we played with toughness.

“And those are things we talk about being on a daily basis. So to see that come to fruition, really consistently, throughout the course of the game was really encouraging.”

Diebler reiterated: “It’s about the culture of this program.”