With just over one minute to play Wednesday night and Ohio State and Rutgers tied at 62-all, Kam Williams found himself on the block on the opposite side at the ball.
As Jae’Sean Tate stood on the right wing and pounded the ball on the floor, Williams sprinted across the paint off a double screen — the first set by Marc Loving, the second by Trevor Thompson — and curled around right in front of the Buckeyes’ bench. Williams caught the ball with his defender trailing, rose in the air and fired a 3-pointer from the wing.
As the ball was in flight toward the basket, the whistle sounded to signal a foul. Shortly thereafter, the shot rattled home. It was a potential four-point play at the game’s most critical moment.
“It was just a good play by [assistant coach Chris] Jent,” Williams said afterward. “It was a little horns action where I just went down to the box and Trevor set me a good screen so I just read my defender and just knocked the shot down.”
Williams made the shot sound so simple, but it was anything but. Because if it didn’t go down, perhaps Ohio State loses to Rutgers. Had that happened, the Buckeyes’ season would essentially have been over.
But the fourth-year junior from Baltimore buried the shot, and then made the ensuing free throw to help Ohio State avoid disaster in a 70-64 victory against the Scarlet Knights.
“I thought Kam was terrific tonight just in terms of he had energy, he was talking, he was defending and chasing screens,” Buckeyes head coach Thad Matta said. “He was hard to guard and had great timing to his offense so that was a very positive thing.”
“We went to him a bit down the stretch there. His motor was clicking tonight so that was good to see.”
Williams tied his career high with 23 points on 8-of-15 shooting. Thompson added his ninth double-double of the season with 15 points and 13 rebounds. Ohio State moved to 15-10 on the season and 5-7 in the Big Ten win the win.
And now, after back-to-back wins, the Buckeyes have a two-game stretch in front of them that very well could determine if this team will play any meaningful basketball over the final month of the season. Ohio State plays at Maryland on Saturday and at Michigan State on Tuesday — a pair of road games against NCAA tournament caliber teams.
In a down year for the Big Ten, if the Buckeyes can somehow find a way to win one of those two games, there might be a glimpse of hope for some late-season magic.
“Our main focus is we’ve just got to take everything day by day and we’ve got to continue to compete because the season is not over with,” Thompson said. “We still have a chance and we still can string games along and keep momentum going. We’ve just got to keep taking everything day by day, keep getting better and just keep chipping away.”
Matta said Tuesday prior to the game against the Scarlet Knights he wanted to see his team string some consistency together. Wednesday’s game wasn’t necessarily a great performance, but it was a win nonetheless. And right now, Ohio State desperately needs wins no matter who they come against.
“There’s great players, there’s great coaching and there’s great teams in this league,” Matta said. “Nothing is ever going to be easy.”
Wednesday certainly wasn’t.
Williams and Thompson helped lift the Buckeyes when they needed it, though, as Ohio State lived to fight another day. Now, with the Terrapins and Spartans on deck, Matta and Co. need to find a different way to come up with wins.
“To look ahead or look behind with this group is not good,” Matta said. “I know this: We’ve got a heck of an opponent at their place Saturday. It’s somebody that got us in here a few games ago and we’ve got to look at that, how we can get better and try to find a way to get better.”
