Buckeyes become lowest seed to make Big Ten Tournament semifinals with win over Michigan State
Ohio State made history Friday in the United Center.
Without an injured Brice Sensabaugh, its leading scorer and first-round NBA Draft prospect.
The Buckeyes came into their third matchup with Michigan State this season as one of six teams to have won back-to-back games to reach the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals. The journeys of the other five stopped there.
Not for a resurrected Ohio State, which has now won five of its last six games after losing 14 of its previous 15 contests.
Head coach Chris Holtmann’s group, the No. 13 seed in the league field, became the lowest seed to make the Big Ten Tournament semifinals with a 68-58 win over MSU.
Ohio State (16-18, 5-15 Big Ten) will now play top-seeded Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals.
West Virginia grad transfer Sean McNeil — the Buckeyes’ best 3-point shooter this season, outside of Sensabaugh — started Friday’s quarterfinal matchup against MSU (19-12, 11-8) in place of Ohio State’s star freshman forward but was swallowed up in coverage most of the game. That created other opportunities beyond the arc for his teammates, namely Justice Sueing.
Before Friday, Sueing, a 25.6% 3-point shooter in 2022-23, hadn’t converted more than two 3-pointers in a game this season. He doubled that season high against the Spartans, knocking down four triples. Two of them came in the game’s opening six minutes.
“Him coming out like that gave us a spark,” freshman point guard Bruce Thornton said of Sueing. “To see his leadership the last couple games is beyond believable. He showed the young guys how to play the Ohio State way. If he keep playing like this, he’s going to be a very special, and [it will be] very hard to beat us.”
After MSU staked itself to a 7-2 lead, in large part thanks to Tyson Walker, Sueing drilled a 3-pointer late in the shot clock. Then, following a layup from Thornton, Sueing struck again from outside. Sueing and Thornton, together, attempted the Buckeyes’ first nine shots versus the Spartans. That duo accounted for 12 of Ohio State’s first 15 points.
The Buckeyes’ scoring attack was more evenly distributed down the stretch of the first period, though. Six Ohio State players etched their names into the score card, including Wright State senior transfer Tanner Holden, who saw the floor for the first time since Feb. 16 at Iowa. Holden even netted a 3-pointer, except he got a technical directly after for gesturing and talking to the MSU bench.
That gifted Spartans graduate forward Joey Hauser with a pair of free throws. MSU, which finished with just 21 field goals, needed all the easy points it could get. The Buckeyes were making head coach Tom Izzo’s team sweat out every offensive possession. Freshman center Felix Okpara — who finished with eight points, eight rebounds and five blocks — was critical to that defensive effort.
“If a guy can control the game with scoring less than 10 points, he’s a prime example because I think he did,” Holtmann said of Okpara.
The Spartans shot just 9-of-29, including 1-of-9 from deep, in the first half. They entered the break trailing Ohio State, 33-24.
Izzo’s halftime speech surely lit a fire underneath his Spartans. The only problem was, that fire went out pretty quickly in the Windy City.
A.J. Hoggard fueled a 10-3 MSU run that made it 36-34 game with 16:25 remaining. Hoggard scored three points in the stretch, including two off a layup after Mady Sissoko rejected Thornton at the cup on the other end.
Holtmann called a timeout. And, out of the break, the Buckeyes responded to the tune of back-to-back 3-pointers from Thornton and Sueing.
Ohio State built its lead back up to 10 points, fleshing out what evolved into a 10-2 flurry, which was capped by an incredible save and three-quarter court pass from McNeil to Thornton for a layup.
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As was the case Thursday against Iowa — when he logged nine of the Buckeyes’ final 18 points — freshman guard Roddy Gayle Jr. piloted the Buckeyes to the finish line versus the Spartans.
“Yesterday’s performance just basically gave me even more confidence than I had,” Gayle said. “I just really just stayed aggressive and tried to play the best winning basketball.”
Gayle scored 12 of his 15 points in the second period. To put that in perspective, Gayle’s previous season high for an entire game was 12 points against St. Francis on Dec. 3.
Shortly after the first of Gayle’s two 3-pointers, though, MSU orchestrated its last run, this one a 9-2 surge that made it a 56-50 game with 4:54 left. Hauser — who registered a team-high 15 points — notched four free throws, and Hoggard sank a pair of jumpers, notably his lone 3-pointer of the day.
That run came with Sueing on the bench after he picked up his fourth personal foul. Gayle also had four fouls but remained aggressive. He scored seven straight points for the Buckeyes. His jab-step 3-pointer with 3:13 to go was the knockout punch.
The Spartans never got closer than nine points from then on, and Thornton — scoring 20-plus points for the third time in six games — punctuated the 10-point victory.
There were a lot of low points during Ohio State’s nine-game skid, its longest losing streak since 1997-98. Chief among them was the Buckeyes scoring just 14 first-half points in a 21-point home defeat to MSU on Feb. 12.
Ohio State was a different team when it played the Spartans in their March 4 regular season finale. Even though Holtmann’s crew couldn’t pull the Senior Day upset in East Lansing, he was still proud of his players’ effort.
“I think what we tried to do is celebrate small steps of quality play, and we started celebrating that more, a good five to 10-minute stretch of playing the right way, and really, really celebrate that and build on it,” Holtmann said. “I think this has been the result.”
As for the fatigue factor after three games in three days?
Thornton said ice baths are critical but so is a motivated mindset.
“It’s hard, but at the end of the day, I want to win so bad,” he said. “I want to just prove people wrong. I want to show everybody what this team is really made of. We went through a big slump, but we keep fighting. We keep showing people that we belong.
“We belong here.”
