Two minutes, 18 seconds.
That’s how long it took Ohio State head coach Thad Matta to call his first timeout of Saturday’s game against Indiana. A made 3-pointer by James Blackmon Jr. — the Hoosiers' third of the game already — gave Indiana a quick 11-0 lead over the Buckeyes and Matta needed to try and stop the bleeding.
It didn’t exactly work.
Indiana scored on 13 of its first 14 possessions against Ohio State, which scrambled at every turn to try and defend the Hoosiers to no avail. The lead grew to as many as 18 points in the opening 20 minutes and when the halftime buzzer sounded, Indiana had 54 points on the scoreboard and a 14-point edge.
The Buckeyes made it interesting with an early second-half run, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The damage had been done. And when the final horn sounded, it was a 96-92 win for the visiting Hoosiers.
“It seemed like every shot they were taking was going in,” Ohio State junior forward Jae’Sean Tate said.
“They just kept going and going and going and going,” Matta added. “I didn’t think we were as aggressive defensively as we needed to be.”
That might be an understatement.
Ohio State struggled at times defensively throughout the Big Ten season as they entered Saturday’s game 12th in the league in adjusted defensive efficiency in conference games. But the Hoosiers had their way on the offensive end unlike any team had this season against the Buckeyes.
The 96 points scored were the most by an Ohio State opponent in Value City Arena history. The previous high was 84.
“The 54 at halftime, I don’t think we’ve ever given up that many points that I can think of,” Matta said. “They were rolling. I give Indiana credit, they were on one today. We probably played 10 minutes of good defense out of [40] but they made us pay quite a bit.”
It was somewhat a fitting end to the Buckeyes’ regular season, though.
Ohio State entered Saturday’s game having won back-to-back games with a chance to win three straight in Big Ten play for the first time all year. But just when you thought the Buckeyes potentially figured something out, it was another flat performance.
Now, Ohio State will play Wednesday — the opening day — of the Big Ten tournament. The Buckeyes finished the regular-season just 17-14 overall and 7-11 in the league. Their opening opponent is still to be determined.
“We’ve just got to try to prepare and make a run in the tournament,” Tate said. “We’ve just got to work hard in practice. We’re not sure who we’re playing or when we’re playing but we’ve just got to go.”
A Big Ten tournament championship is the only thing that will get Ohio State back to the NCAA tournament. If that doesn’t happen, the Buckeyes are likely headed to the NIT for the second-straight season.
A tournament run isn’t happening, however, unless Ohio State can quickly fix the defensive woes that have plagued it all season.
“Giving up 96 points is unacceptable,” Tate said.
This has been quite a difficult year for the Buckeyes and Saturday’s performance was certainly a bitter end to the regular-season. Throughout it all, Ohio State players and coaches continued to say there was enough time to figure things out and build some momentum heading into postseason play.
Well, that time of the year is here now. And after the loss to Indiana, the momentum the Buckeyes thought they had was severely halted.
“We’ll take a look at this, find out who our next opponent is, when we play, who we play. The only thing I know right now is it’s in Washington D.C.,” Matta said. “We’ve made some steady gains, I think, throughout the course of the last couple weeks but we’ve just got to find a way to keep playing the most consistent that we can.”
