Ohio State made quick work of another mid-major opponent at home Wednesday.
The Buckeyes bounced back from Saturday’s overtime loss to North Carolina by mauling Maine, 95-61, to start the season 6-0 at the Schottenstein Center. Ohio State went up by as many as 22 points in the first half, led by 21 at intermission and didn’t let its foot off the gas much after that.
| Team | 1 | 2 | FINAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| OHIO STATE | 47 | 48 | 95 |
| MAINE | 26 | 35 | 61 |
Buckeye big man Zed Key set the tone early, establishing a marked advantage in the paint. Ohio State went to the well repeatedly without much of a meaningful answer from an overmatched Maine roster. The Buckeyes finished with a 64-28 edge in points in the paint.
Brice Sensabaugh (19), Justice Sueing (15), Key (14), Bruce Thornton (11) and Felix Okpara (10) all scored 10 or more points for the Buckeyes. Even though Maine had a more efficient half on offense to end the game, Ohio State never left the door open wide enough for the Black Bears to make any serious push late.
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Ohio State shot 61% from the floor for the game and a whopping 69% in the second half.
First Half
Ohio State led for 19:08 of the first 20 minutes as the Buckeyes converted 21% more of their shots and found interior success with ease on offense.
By the first media timeout, the Buckeyes had already doubled up the Black Bears. Ohio State mounted a 12-6 lead a little over four minutes into the action and entered the first break on a 7-0 run from Key and Sensabaugh.
Ohio State had four dunks in the first six minutes and change, and three came by way of Key alone. Key had 10 points by the 13:27 mark, at which point the Buckeyes took a nine-point lead amid a hot start on offense.
Ohio State outscored Maine 22-5 in a nine-minute stretch in the middle of the first half, and the last 14 of those were unanswered until the Black Bears responded with three straight buckets of their own. Before that, they had missed nine consecutive shot attempts.
But Maine couldn’t maintain nearly enough offensive output to keep up with the Buckeyes, who mounted a 21-point lead at halftime after outscoring the Black Bears 36-10 in the paint. Ohio State also outrebounded Maine by nine and had 10 more points off turnovers.
Second Half
Ohio State rattled off the first seven points of the second half to push its blowout lead to 28 points with 18 minutes to go.
But Maine matched Ohio State nearly shot-for-shot over much of the next nine minutes. From 16:50 to 8:06, the Buckeyes never hit more than one shot without an answer on the other end from the Black Bears.
| OHIO STATE | STAT | MAINE |
|---|---|---|
| 95 | POINTS | 61 |
| 41-67 (61.2%) | FGM-FGA (PCT.) | 25-64 (39.1%) |
| 8-19 (42.1%) | 3PM-3PA (PCT.) | 6-25 (24%) |
| 5-7 (71.4%) | FTM-FTA (PCT.) | 5-6 (83.3%) |
| 7 | TURNOVERS | 13 |
| 39 | TOTAL REBOUNDS | 27 |
| 10 | OFFENSIVE REBOUNDS | 10 |
| 29 | DEFENSIVE REBOUNDS | 17 |
| 28 | BENCH POINTS | 11 |
| 5 | BLOCKS | 2 |
| 6 | STEALS | 4 |
| 23 | ASSISTS | 11 |
Maine cut the Ohio State lead to 21 points by that point, but Sueing responded to score five of the following seven points for the Buckeyes amid a 12-0 run. Sensabaugh scored three of those on a long-range make from the wing with 4:53 to play, and Ohio State went up by 31 at the under-five-minute media timeout.
Roddy Gayle Jr. made it a 33-point game with a two-handed dunk at the 4:09 mark, and that signaled redshirt freshman Kalen Etzler and true freshman Bowen Hardman to enter the game off the bench as Chris Holtmann effectively called off the dogs late.
Hardman hit the first official shot of his college career in the final minutes with two 3-pointers to close the show for OSU.
Game Notes
- Eugene Brown (concussion) dressed for the first time all season but sat out for the 11th straight game to start the year.
- Isaac Likekele, who continues to deal with a sensitive family matter, was unavailable for the third straight game and was not with the team on Wednesday.
- With Likekele out, Brice Sensabaugh made his third consecutive start on the wing for Ohio State.
- Wednesday’s matchup was the first all-time meeting between the two programs. Chris Holtmann had previously faced the Black Bears one other time while coaching with Butler in 2014.
- Ohio State’s four previous matchups with mid-major competition this season all resulted in wins by at least 22 points.
- In the first leg of a two-game road trip to Ohio, Maine was blown out by 32 points by Akron on Monday.
- With a 3-pointer in the first half, Sean McNeil hit 1,000 points in his Division I college basketball career.
