Ohio State was in control through 20 minutes.
Immediately after halftime, though, things shifted in the opposite direction.
The Buckeyes built a seven-point lead against Michigan at the intermission of Sunday’s regular-season finale, but one stretch in particular spelled doom. A 9-2 Wolverine run helped Michigan make up ground to open the second half, and a few minutes later it was a 14-1 run that put the Wolverines up 12 points with 10 minutes to play, ultimately leading to Ohio State’s third loss in four games to end the regular season.
Ohio State made a late push, but the game might as well have been decided during that four-minute stretch through the middle of the second half.
“We just didn’t get stops when we needed to and we weren’t tough enough,” Buckeye forward Justin Ahrens said after the game. “I feel like they were too aggressive in the second half. We turned the ball over too much, which led to a lot of transition points for them, which can get any team going, honestly.”
Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann boiled the Buckeyes’ issues down to just three words after the 75-69 loss, which pushed the scarlet and gray down to the No. 6 seed in the Big Ten Tournament.
“Defense and turnovers,” Holtmann said. “We just didn’t have the urgency we needed, so it’s my fault.”
Ohio State gave up 18 more points to the Wolverines than it did in the first meeting between the two programs, a 68-57 Buckeye win in Ann Arbor on Feb. 12, and Michigan didn’t even have its best player on the floor Sunday. Hunter Dickinson, who averages 18.4 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, sat out because of an illness, but that didn’t stop Michigan from shooting 48.4 percent from the field in the second half as the Wolverines outscored Ohio State 45-32 after halftime.
The Buckeyes also turned the ball over 13 times, which led to 12 points for the Wolverines in the six-point Ohio State loss. The Buckeyes enjoyed a seven-game stretch through January and part of February in which they didn’t turn the ball over more than nine times in any game, but they have now done so seven times in the last eight games alone.
“We didn’t handle the ball well at all,” Holtmann said. “We were sloppy with it, we were soft with the ball. … We had too many careless turnovers. Their trapping of the post bothered us a little bit. We didn’t handle that well, so that’s on me, that’s my fault.”
Ohio State shot 55.6 percent from the floor in the first half, more than 20 percent better than Michigan did, and the Buckeyes doubled the Wolverines’ points in the paint. Perhaps that is why a 37-30 halftime lead didn’t quite feel big enough for Ohio State.
But Michigan hit five of its final seven shots to close out the opening period and started the second half just as hot. Wolverine guards DeVante’ Jones and Eli Brooks each hit layups in the opening minutes of the period, Moussa Diabate followed suit and Brooks hit a three to tie thing up, 39-39, before five minutes had rolled off the clock.
By the time Jones hit his next three just a minute later, Michigan had taken the lead. Ohio State retook the lead on the very next shot, but it was the last one the Buckeyes would have over the Wolverines on Sunday.
Jones, Brooks, Terrance Williams and Brandon Johns all scored as Michigan went from down one point to up 12 over a four-minute span from 14:18 to 10:18. After not shooting a single free throw in the first half, the Wolverines went 7-for-7 from the charity stripe in that stretch alone and finished 11-for-11 for the game.
On offense, Ohio State started the second half shooting 3-for-10 while Michigan got out in front.
“I just think they got into us and they bothered us and we didn’t run good lead cuts, and then their trapping from the baseline is something they had not done,” Holtmann said. “Obviously when you play a team a month ago and you beat them, they’re gonna make adjustments. They adjusted how they were playing the post and we thought we had given them solutions, but clearly we didn’t, so that’s on me.”
While it has drawn criticism at times this season, the home environment at the Schottenstein Center was not the issue for Ohio State this time around. E.J. Liddell even praised the turnout from the Buckeye faithful after the game, but said the team didn’t give fans much to cheer about in the second half.
“Didn’t play with a lot of urgency, and we needed to come out and win. It was a great crowd out there, I felt like they gave us a lot of energy in the first half, and second half we didn’t give them any energy back,” Liddell said. “So I feel like we didn’t come out and play with enough urgency in the second half.”
Even more disappointing for the Buckeyes was that Sunday’s game was Senior Day for a host of Ohio State players, and the veterans didn’t go out with a rivalry win in their final home game in Columbus.
“That’s obviously unacceptable,” Holtmann said. “I think Senior Day, it’s a lot of emotions that go into it and it can almost be, in some ways, paralyzing because of all that goes into it. But I just didn’t think our bite was near good enough in the second half, and that’s on me.”
Ohio State still had a chance to try and secure a double bye in the Big Ten Tournament with a win on Sunday, but now the Buckeyes fall to the No. 6 seed and will have a shorter rest period before beginning their postseason run.
After cramming seven games into the last 16 days, any rest will be good for Ohio State, but that alone isn’t likely to solve all of its problems moving forward.
“We need rest, we need to get healthy, but we need to play better,” Holtmann said. “We need to defend better and defend better as a group, so health is certainly a factor.”
