BROOKLYN, N.Y. — With exactly five seconds remaining in what had already been a surprising first half, Ohio State's JaQuan Lyle took an inbounds pass from Marc Loving underneath their team's own basket. Lyle, the Buckeyes’ true freshman point guard, dribbled the ball five times as he sprinted down the left side of the court, then crossed over and headed directly toward the Ohio State logo painted on the floor of the Barclays Center.
With Kentucky’s Jamal Murray draped all over him, Lyle sprung to the air off both feet, fading to his right, and let fly a deep, 25-foot 3-point attempt. The halftime buzzer sounded as the ball was right near the basket.
Of course it went in. It had to go in. With the way things had gone for the Buckeyes in the first half — and to a certain extent, the entire game — there was no doubt it was going in.
It was just that type of day.
Ohio State stunned No. 4 Kentucky on Saturday in the CBS Sports Classic, 74-67. Outside of a few mishaps and scoring droughts here and there, seemingly everything went right for the Buckeyes in what was by far their best performance of the season.
“I think it’s a big, big win for us,” Ohio State head coach Thad Matta said afterward. “We had two days to prepare for this and it was a little bit of a different game plan. These guys did a tremendous job of understanding in a short period of time what we were going to attempt to do.”
Lyle’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer gave the Buckeyes a 12-point edge heading into the intermission. Ohio State stretched its lead to as many as 16 midway through the second half before the Wildcats finally got going and made a run — a run you knew was going to happen.
Led by Murray, who connected on his first seven 3-pointers of the second half, Kentucky closed within three, 63-60, with just four minutes to play. But as the Wildcats were surging and the Big Blue Nation crowd — which took up roughly 90 percent of the Barclays Center — was as loud as it had been the entire game, the Buckeyes got yet another huge play from another freshman.
Kentucky’s Skal Labissiere missed a jump shot and the ball ricocheted around a bit, bodies hitting the floor as the ball was loose. Ohio State’s Daniel Giddens came up with it, though, and dished ahead to Kam Williams. The Buckeyes’ redshirt-sophomore guard was then intentionally fouled by Tyler Ulis, went to the free-throw line in front of a raucous crowd, and calmly knocked in a pair of free throws to push Ohio State’s lead to five — a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.
“I love to see our guys play how they did today with that energy,” Matta said. “Daniel was laid out like Superman trying to get that ball and I always tell the guys good things happen when you play extremely hard, and that was definitely one of those things.”
That was the only way Ohio State was going to upset Kentucky — the team annually littered with NBA lottery picks. It had to play harder.
That’s exactly what happened, too. The Buckeyes were more aggressive, they played with more energy and in the end were able to pull off a win nobody thought they could.
“Being an underdog, we had nothing to lose,” said junior forward Marc Loving, who finished with 12 points and eight rebounds. “We had a chip on our shoulder from the beginning and we felt very, very prepared for this game. We executed our system.”
Ohio State does not have an NBA lottery pick on its team or even a star player for that matter. The Buckeyes have to win games the way they did Saturday, by getting a collective offensive effort and playing extremely hard on defense.
Keita Bates-Diop’s 14 points led the way for Ohio State as the Buckeyes put four guys in double figures. All eight players who saw time on the floor finished with at least six points. JaQuan Lyle (11 points) and Trevor Thompson (10) joined Bates-Diop and Loving in double-figures.
Freshman point guard A.J. Harris hit a pair of huge 3-pointers and was used down the stretch to obliterate Kentucky’s press as a one-man fast break. Williams, who finished with nine points, was on fire in the first half scoring seven points in just 2 minutes, 30 seconds.
“We’re all talented, we’re all good players. It doesn’t always have to be one guy who takes all the shots to take over a game,” Bates-Diop said. “We all trust each other to make plays and we did that today.”
Matta has talked all season about how his team isn’t good enough to make some of the mistakes it had been making and that the Buckeyes need to find a way to “create their own breaks.”
Ohio State did exactly that against the bigger, stronger, faster, more talented Wildcats.
“They were the aggressor,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said, “and they came after us.”
As the final horn sounded, the Buckeyes who were sitting on the bench stormed onto the court in celebration. Matta lifted both hands into the air and gave a double fist pump. There were handshakes and high-fives all around. Ohio State would later celebrate in the locker room.
This was exactly what the Buckeyes needed considering what had transpired seven days prior. Ohio State had just been routed on the road by Connecticut and morale couldn't have been high. The season had potential to turn in a hurry — and not in a good way.
But what a difference a week makes.
“It’s like the complete opposite feeling of last week,” Bates-Diop said. “We’re going to celebrate for a bit but we’ve got to move on to the next one.”
