Duane Washington Jr. raised a white towel above his head, covering his face. The junior guard stood on the left side of the baseline by himself, the rest of his teammates standing side by side on the opposite side of the stanchion with their eyes first trained on CJ Walker, then on Kyle Young, as they gave teary-eyed Senior Day speeches to the families scattered across the seats inside the Schottenstein Center. Washington slowly paced alone. He muttered to himself and weakly swung the towel around.
When Young ended his address to the crowd, he and Walker solemnly strolled over to their fellow Ohio State players who embraced them with hugs before walking back to the locker room. Washington didn’t accompany them. He sauntered by himself up the tunnel.
“He just was disappointed,” head coach Chris Holtmann said. “He wanted to win for his seniors. He loves his seniors. He's disappointed. I don't know what reaction you want a young man to make right after the game when he loves CJ, he loves Kyle. I think probably that was part of it. He was so emotional because he wanted it so bad for those guys.”
It doesn’t take a genius to imagine what was running through Washington’s head.
He had just missed five shots in the last 3:03 of the No. 7 Buckeyes’ 73-68 loss to No. 4 Illinois on Saturday. His team missed its last 10 shots from the field, and five of those were his.
Washington first missed a three, then a layup six seconds later, with Ohio State up by four points. With the Buckeyes still up by four, he missed a jumper in his next trip down the court. Two possessions later with the game now tied, he missed a 3-pointer. He missed his third triple in the three-minute stretch with 17 seconds left, all but sealing Illinois' victory.
He went from trying to extend Ohio State’s lead with a couple of minutes left to throwing a Hail Mary with time expiring. Neither of those went through the net, and nor did the other three he hoisted.
“He forced a couple, he forced a couple,” head coach Chris Holtmann said. “I think he had a couple clean ones, but he's got to play with more poise in those situations, and he will. I thought he played with really good poise throughout the game. We've got to help him with that. He's got to make better decisions there late.”
Holtmann added: “He's just got to play with more poise, make better decisions there late because the ball is going to continue to be in his hands. We've just got to keep teaching.”
Notably absent from the late stretch was E.J. Liddell, the sophomore going against his home-state Illini.
His first half went about as poorly as anybody could have imagined. The 6-foot-7 forward scored five points on seven shots, missed his first two free-throw attempts and grabbed a single rebound while in the game for 17 of the first 20 minutes. But Liddell caught fire in the second half. He hit six of his first eight shots in the second half, including a streak of five makes in a row that concluded with a 3-pointer to put the Buckeyes up 68-64 with 3:48 left. With a wide smile across his face, Liddell made eye contact with Justin Ahrens while running back on defense.
It felt like Ohio State suddenly had momentum and, perhaps, the best player on the court on its own team.
The 3-pointer, though, would be the final points Ohio State scored in the game. It was the last time the Buckeyes saw a shot – either from the field or the foul line – go down.
Liddell, despite a second-half surge that led him to end with 19 points, didn’t attempt a shot for more than three minutes after his triple put Ohio State up by four. Not until 29 seconds remained in what was then a three-point game did he shoot again.
“I think we missed him a couple times on some actions we were geared to run,” Holtmann said. “We ran two actions to him, and they made it difficult for him to catch it. We've got to get him the ball there.”
So much late didn’t go Ohio State’s way. Not the good looks. Not the ill-advised shots. Not even part of the game plan.
Young mentioned the Buckeyes wanted to “play through the paint” down the stretch, and Walker said they planned to “get to the free-throw line, just be aggressive” late in the game while trying to draw fouls. Only one of Ohio State's three makes in the last six-and-a-half minutes – a Washington layup – came inside of the 3-point arc. Ohio State didn't attempt a single free throw in the last seven-and-a-half minutes.
Unable to get those shots inside and draw the contact the Buckeyes talked about seeking, they looked elsewhere and largely came up empty.
“I thought Kyle's look was a really clean one,” Holtmann said. “He's made that one, say, at Iowa. Just missed it here today. I think the quality of shot is what we're looking at, and I thought we had OK quality with a couple possessions. Other possessions, I thought we had good quality, just missed them. We pressed a couple of those possessions. We pressed and didn't play with enough poise there late. But other possessions we did, we just didn't convert.”
For Ohio State, what transpired late against Illinois in the regular-season finale was made worse based on the recent history.
The Buckeyes squandered a potential comeback opportunity late against Michigan, falling by five. That was followed by a four-point loss to Michigan State when they scored only four points in the last three minutes. Then came a 16-point loss to Iowa that, while not close down the stretch, featured Ohio State making one shot from the field in the last 10 minutes.
These late-game offensive lulls have become a trend, and it’s not the type of trend any team wants as it enters the postseason.
“Going into March, it's kind of that one-and-done mentality, so you've got to figure it out, have more sense of urgency,” Walker said. “We've gotta be better at finishing games.”
