The final 10-game sprint through the regular season finish line starts in Piscataway.
After playing its first home game in 19 days, a 15-point win over Maryland on Sunday, No. 16 Ohio State heads back on the road for its only scheduled meeting with Rutgers, which sits two spots below the Buckeyes at sixth place in the Big Ten standings.
| WHO | WHERE | WHEN | TV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rutgers (13-9, 7-5 B1G) | Rutgers Athletic Center | 7 p.m. | BTN |
Steve Pikiell’s program, which won its first NCAA Tournament game in 38 years last season, is 7-5 in conference play this season and is fresh off of one of its best wins so far: an 18-point blowout of Tom Izzo and Michigan State this past weekend.
"Tremendous respect for them. I think they're talented and really well-coached. They are just tremendous at home – they're a good team regardless, home-road they fight you – but they're obviously an elite team at home when you look at who they've beaten, their scores, their quality of play," Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann said Tuesday. "It's really as challenging of an environment on the road as really you'll see in this league."
Rutgers has had its fair share of poor performances as well this season, dropping three straight games to DePaul, Lafayette and Massachusetts during a non-conference stretch in November, but the Scarlet Knights have also knocked off a couple of the top teams in the Big Ten.
The Buckeyes have won their last four games against Rutgers, and will enter the RAC as the favorite despite having suffered all five of their losses either on the road or at neutral sites this season. Ohio State is looking to win its fifth contest out of six and pick up its fourth Big Ten road victory of the season.
What To Watch For
Ranked teams struggle at the RAC
Rutgers is 11-2 at home this season, and both of those slip-ups came by single-digit margins. The two previous times a ranked opponent has come to the RAC, it has been upset at the hands of the Scarlet Knights. They knocked off then-No. 1 Purdue, 70-68, on Dec. 9, and crushed then-No. 13 Michigan State, 84-63, this past Saturday. Rutgers will be playing its second straight home game against a ranked team Wednesday, although the Buckeyes beat the Scarlet Knights handily last season in their last trip to the RAC – albeit without fans during the COVID-plagued 2020-21 campaign.
Slow tempo from Rutgers
Per KenPom, Rutgers ranks 290th in the country in adjusted tempo, and many of the final scores of its contests illustrate the impact of that stat. The Scarlet Knights, who have the second lowest-scoring offense in the Big Ten (68.3), have failed to score 60 points on five occasions and scored less than 50 in three of those games. But Rutgers also has the second-best scoring defense in the conference (64.8) and has held opponents under 60 points five times. The Buckeyes have the sixth-best adjusted offensive efficiency in the country, per KenPom, but could get sucked into Rutgers’ preferred style of game if they’re not careful.
A historic streak for Ohio State
With a win on Wednesday, the Buckeyes would claim their longest-ever win streak over the Scarlet Knights. Ohio State has won its last four games against Rutgers, with its last loss to the Scarlet Knights coming on Jan. 9, 2019. The current streak is tied with Ohio State’s 4-0 run against Rutgers from 2014-17 as its longest all-time, but a fifth straight victory this week would break that tie.
Three Important Buckeyes
E.J. Liddell
As good as Liddell has been all season, he’s taken things up another notch in the last few games for Ohio State. Averaging 19.9 points per game for the season as a whole, Liddell is scoring 22.3 in his past three appearances and has scored at least 20 points in three straight games for just the second time in his career. Liddell has hit 56.8 percent of his shots while pulling down 9.7 rebounds per game and dishing out 4.3 assists per game in that span. Ohio State’s star had already been doing it all for the Buckeyes all year, but he’s been doing all of that even more as of late.
Malaki Branham
Ohio State’s second-leading scorer quietly had one of his worst shooting performances of the year against Maryland, scoring eight points on just 3-for-12 from the floor. Oddly enough, Branham is averaging nearly seven fewer points in his past four home games than in his last six on the road, and shooting 23.1 percent worse. Now back on the road, perhaps Branham will have another big game in a hostile environment for the Buckeyes.
Justin Ahrens
Buckeye fans had a collective sigh of relief when Justin Ahrens finally shot his way out of a nine-game shooting slump Sunday, going off for 14 points on 4-for-7 from 3-point range against the Terps. But now Ahrens, who will likely remain in a reserve role after losing his starting job for the first time just two games ago, will have to prove against Rutgers that last time out wasn’t just a one-off.
Three Important Scarlet Knights
| Player | Position | Height | Weight | Stats |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GEO BAKER | G | 6-4 | 185 | 11.6 PPG, 4.1 APG |
| PAUL MULCAHY | G | 6-6 | 213 | 8.4 PPG, 5.4 APG |
| CALEB MCCONNELL | G | 6-7 | 200 | 6.6 PPG, 5.1 RPG |
| RON HARPER JR. | G/F | 6-6 | 245 | 15.9 PPG, 6.2 RPG |
| CLIFFORD OMORUYI | C | 6-11 | 240 | 11.4 PPG, 8 RPG |
Ron Harper Jr.
Any Buckeye veteran will not need a reminder about what Ron Harper Jr. brings to the table, as the longtime Scarlet Knight is now in his fourth season with Rutgers and his third as the program’s leading scorer. Averaging a career-high 15.9 points per game and shooting 41.2 percent from 3-point range, Harper will be the tip of the spear for the Scarlet Knights on offense. Harper is also the team’s second-leading rebounder with an average of 6.2, and he’s tallying 1.9 assists and 1.3 steals per game to boot.
Clifford Omoruyi
Rutgers’ 6-foot-11 big man started just six games last year, but he’s become a full-fledged star for the Scarlet Knights in his second season, averaging a team third-best 11.4 points per game and leading the group with eight boards a night. Omoruyi didn’t play in either matchup with the Buckeyes a season ago, which means he’ll be a fresh face for an Ohio State frontcourt with a well-publicized size disadvantage down low.
Geo Baker
Baker is a double-digit scorer in the Rutgers backcourt for the fifth season in a row with an average of 11.6 points per game. The 6-foot-4 guard is also the Scarlet Knights’ second-leading assist man, dishing out 4.1 per game this season. Baker has been inconsistent offensively, as he scored zero points last week against Northwestern after scoring 25 points against Minnesota 10 days earlier, but he remains a legitimate threat for Ohio State to worry about Wednesday.
How It Plays Out
Line: Ohio State -3.5, O/U 136.5
Rutgers’ positional size and slow tempo could make this one a grind-it-out affair, and the RAC gives the Scarlet Knights a significant home-floor advantage. However, the Buckeyes should still be the better team if they can avoid the type of road lulls that have doomed them against Xavier, Indiana, Wisconsin and Purdue.
Prediction: Ohio State 69, Rutgers 66
