Ohio State second-half comeback not enough at Michigan, road drought continues

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It appeared as if Ohio State was well on its way to resuscitating its offense, snapping its 379-day true road win drought and beating rival Michigan in one fell swoop, courtesy of a 16-0 run.

Down by as many as 12 points in the second half, Ohio State took a four-point lead with under eight minutes to play.

But Michigan, which shot 12-of-23 from deep, never went away.

Three more triples in the final six minutes made the difference for the Wolverines, who ended a skid of their own. Losers of five straight, they hadn’t won since Dec. 16.

Ohio State still had a chance with less than a minute to go, but, with his team trailing by four points, Buckeyes guard Roddy Gayle Jr. short-armed a runner. Michigan forward Terrance Williams II knocked down his fifth and final 3-pointer, and the Wolverines sealed their 73-65 victory.

“I think we’ve got young guys that are closing games for pretty much the first time, and I think there’s a process to that,” Buckeyes head coach Chris Holtmann said postgame.

“Listen, this is league play in, I think, the second-deepest league in the country, and we’ll look at ways that we can play better and coach better.”

Not even two weeks ago, Ohio State (12-5, 2-4 Big Ten) was putting on an offensive clinic in the first half against Rutgers, moving the ball around the perimeter with pristine fluidity.

That offensive flow was non-existent at points of the first half Monday afternoon at Michigan, where the Buckeyes didn’t record an assist in the first 15 minutes and had just two feeders in the opening half.

Meanwhile, Michigan (7-10, 2-4) — which, despite its lousy record, boasts the 38th-most efficient offense in the country — more than tripled Ohio State’s first-half assist number.

It helped that the Wolverines were making shots. They were 7-of-11 from beyond the arc, while the Buckeyes made just one of their 14 long-range attempts in the opening frame.

Still, Ohio State staked itself to a 15-13 lead with 11:25 to go in the period. Evan Mahaffey and Bruce Thornton combined for the team’s first eight points.

Thornton and freshman forward Devin Royal paced Ohio State with seven points apiece in the first half. Thornton, still struggling with his shot, got there on nine attempts. Royal did so on four, making all but one of them and cashing in on an and-one.

But that old-fashion 3-point play came later in the half — after a pair of 8-0 Michigan runs.

Those Wolverines surges are what separated the rivals by the time intermission rolled around. The first one saw Michigan forward Will Tschetter overpower Royal on the catch for two points down low and Williams blow by Ohio State guard Dale Bonner for a layup. The second spurt featured 3-pointers from Williams — created by Dug McDaniel’s penetration — and then Olivier Nkamhoua — courtesy of a kind Crisler Center bounce — ballooning the home team’s lead to 29-19.

“They got a few of those on our ball-screen coverage, and when you’re going to commit two to the ball, I just think we needed to challenge a little bit better, and we stayed a little bit too long,” Holtmann explained.

McDaniel, Nkamhoua and Williams have carried the Wolverines offense this season, and that remained true in the first half Monday.

Nkamhoua spearheaded the effort with 12 first-half points, while Williams and McDaniel both had eight. All three of them knocked down two 3-pointers in the first 20 minutes of action.

McDaniel’s pair came in the final three minutes and change of the period: the first interrupted a nine-point Buckeyes flurry, and the second flew through the net at the buzzer to give Michigan a 37-28 halftime advantage.

A Thornton 3-pointer and the aforementioned Royal and-one were the big movers for Ohio State down the stretch of the first half. Holtmann got creative with his rotation in that span, with freshmen Taison Chatman, Scotty Middleton and Royal all seeing the floor in the final minutes of the half. There was also a sequence where Buckeyes big men Zed Key and Felix Okpara shared the court.

Ohio State didn’t start stringing together runs until the second half, however.

The Buckeyes kicked off the period by outscoring Michigan, 11-6. Mahaffey chipped in two quick buckets, and then Jamison Battle — who cooled off with a 2-of-10 shooting performance — notched his only two makes of the day.

Battle dialed up a shot fake and then got to the rim for a one-handed slam. He followed that highlight-reel play with a 3-pointer, a rare sight for a Buckeyes squad that finished 3-of-25 from outside.

That was the first of three times in the early going of the final frame that Ohio State cut its deficit to four. Eventually, Michigan started to pull away.

No Buckeyes defender picked up McDaniel, who promptly swished his third 3-pointer, and then Royal airballed a triple of his own soon after, causing the maize and blue crowd to cheer and jeer.

Out of the timeout, Williams added another 3-pointer to make it 55-43.

Cue the game-changing Ohio State run that dug the Buckeyes out of a 12-point hole and actually put them in the driver’s seat late.

It all started with Bonner, who, for the most part, put his struggles from the last month behind him and gave the Buckeyes a lift in the second half. Bonner scored or assisted on four of Ohio State’s six field goals during the run, supplying the feed on each of the last three baskets.

Okpara was responsible for two of those three and turned in a 10-point and nine-rebound performance on 5-of-8 shooting. Thornton put a bow on the unanswered 16 points with a silk-smooth 3-pointer.

The problem was, over the next six or so minutes, Ohio State had just one field goal to its name.

“It’s a make or miss league for this league,” Thornton said of the Big Ten before noting, “it’s a make-or-miss league for a lot of Power Five and mid-major leagues. Because if you make shots, the whole [tenor] of the game is different.

“But I feel like, at the end of day, we still gotta lean our hat on the defensive side. I felt like we got good stops, but a lot of second-chance points really killed us.”

After Ohio State briefly pulled back ahead, 61-60, with a Gayle dunk — made possible by a Tarris Reed Jr. turnover — Michigan took the lead right back, scoring five of its next seven points on second-chance opportunities, like Thornton alluded to.

Gayle coming up short on a floater was effectively the nail in the Buckeyes’ Block M-plated coffin.

Ohio State is confident its season, on the other hand, is very much still alive.

“Right now, we’re go through a little adversity,” Okpara said. “The coaching staff and the players, we trust. We trust what the coach is telling us. We practice hard every day, and we know what we’re capable of. We can’t let this little three-game adversity set us back.”

Holtmann added: “Our story’s far from over. You’ll see what this group can grow into. Not many people are going to maybe feel that right now. But I certainly do. I know our staff does, and I know a lot of the guys in the locker room do.”