The flipping of calendars from January to February is about to become an annual holiday in the Chris Holtmann household.
A year ago, the Buckeyes won their first three games of February after going 1-6 in the first month of the year. This season, they experienced another turnaround, except it was even more remarkable. Ohio State again scuffled to a 2-5 record in January, only to go 8-2 in the next 10 games.
Holtmann, in his nine years as a head coach, admitted after his team beat Michigan that he hasn’t seen anything like it.
“I don't think I've been a part of one this significant where you've seen such a dramatic turnaround,” Holtmann said a week ago.
The gravity of the change in fortune couldn’t possibly be disputed. Ohio State went from a sinking ship headed toward the bottom of the proverbial Big Ten ocean, putting it dangerously close to Northwestern and Nebraska in the conference standings a little over a month ago, to having a 9-2 record in its past 11 games and moving firmly back inside the top 25.
Yet, one unanswered question about the future of this season remains hovering over this team: Can Ohio State win away from home, and can it do so with consistency?
“I think that's the question about us,” Holtmann said, “and that's the question we'll put in front of us as a group.”
Holtmann hasn’t hidden from the Buckeyes’ struggles away from the Schottenstein Center, though it’s not as though he had a choice.
Ohio State has a 4-6 record in away games and a 1-1 mark in neutral site games. Of the four wins, two came against Big Ten bottom-feeders – Northwestern and Nebraska – and one was a beatdown of the worst North Carolina Tar Heels team in nearly two decades. The sole victory versus a team ranked within the top-80 by KenPom happened on Feb. 4 when the Buckeyes topped Juwan Howard’s Michigan Wolverines, 61-58, for what was at the time their first three-game winning streak since early December. Ohio State also gets credit for beating Kentucky at a neutral site, though doing so in Las Vegas doesn’t compare to getting that result in Lexington.
On Sunday afternoon, the Buckeyes will get a final chance to garnish their road resume when they take on No. 16 Michigan State in East Lansing.
Playing in the Breslin Center on Cassius Winston’s Senior Day means Ohio State will deservedly enter as an underdog. The general public won’t expect the Buckeyes to beat the Spartans. Yet if they fall to 4-7 in true road games, they’ll end the regular season with only one away victory against a team that will dance in the NCAA tournament.
“We've not always been good on the road,” Holtmann said. “We've not always been tough-minded on the road. We haven't. Coaches, players, got to own that. We've got to try to be better. We're playing a top-10 team in the country on Sunday on Senior Day. We've got to be better on the road. You mention the Michigan win, that was a great win on the road – I guess probably our best road win on the year. We've got to be better.”
Ohio State's CJ Walker calls a play during the second half against the Minnesota Gophers at Williams Arena. Harrison Barden-USA TODAY Sports.
The differences in venue become especially clear when comparing what the Buckeyes have done on the road (4-6 record) to their performances in Columbus (16-2 record).
Statistically, Ohio State has been good at home. Really good. Almost certainly even better than whatever you’re thinking.
The Buckeyes enter Sunday with the nation’s best home adjusted overall efficiency rating, per Bart Torvik. They’re No. 4 in adjusted offensive efficiency rating (118.8) and No. 20 in adjusted defensive efficiency (88.9) rating in home games.
But away from the Schottenstein Center and that one game at St. John Arena? A stark difference. Ohio State’s 34th in the country in road adjusted overall efficiency rating, per Bart Torvik. While its defense produces nearly as well away from home as it does in friendly confines, its offense simply hasn’t. It ranks 67th in road adjusted offensive efficiency rating (106.4) and 34th in road adjusted defensive efficiency rating (93.6).
Striking differences in shooting percentages highlight the offensive home/road disparity.
- Home games: 56.3 effective field-goal percentage (19th), 53.0 2-point percentage (104th), 40.6 3-point percentage (10th)
- Road games: 46.5 effective field-goal percentage (256th), 44.4 2-point percentage (302nd), 32.9 3-point percentage (161st)
- Home Big Ten games: 54.7 effective field-goal percentage (1st), 50.5 2-point percentage (3rd), 40.4 3-point percentage (1st)
- Road Big Ten games: 45.5 effective field-goal percentage (12th), 43.5 2-point percentage (13th), 32.2 3-point percentage (5th)
For a team that doesn’t get to the rim with much frequency, leading to constant struggles to win when it doesn’t get hot from behind the arc, the inconsistency from behind the arc on the road has proven to be especially troublesome. In postseason play, it could doom Ohio State.
A number of factors could be at play, with youth being chief among them. Whatever has happened to the Buckeyes away from Columbus, though, has to end now.
Not only do they have to start winning away from home, they have to do so with consistency. Postseason success is defined by the ability to string together wins in a row. Over the past five weeks, they’ve piled together victories, but even during that stretch they’ve gone 6-0 at home and 3-2 on the road.
Ohio State won’t host any more games at the Schottenstein Center until November, so while its turnaround has been impressive, the unanswered question of whether it can win consecutive games in unfamiliar buildings in the postseason remains.
“That's a question for us,” Holtmann said. “We've got to own that.”
