If all goes well for the scarlet and gray on Thursday, Ohio State will walk off its home court with an upset win over the top-ranked team in college basketball. Sound familiar?
It should, because the Buckeyes have made something of a habit out of doing so in the Chris Holtmann era. This wouldn’t be the first or second time Ohio State beat the national No. 1 since Holtmann took over for Thad Matta in 2017. In fact, it would improve the Buckeyes’ record to 3-0 against opponents carrying the top spot in the AP poll over the past five seasons. And Ohio State has just so happened to have home-court advantage in each matchup.
| DATE | OPPONENT | RECORD | SCORE (RESULT) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 7, 2018 | MICHIGAN STATE | 14-1 | 80-64 (OSU W) |
| Nov. 30, 2021 | DUKE | 7-0 | 71-66 (OSU W) |
| JAN. 5, 2023 | PURDUE | 13-1 | TBD |
Given Monday night’s results, the Buckeyes may be catching Purdue at the perfect time. Had the game been scheduled four days later, the Boilermakers might not be the No. 1 team in the country, as their unblemished 13-0 start to the season was sullied by a 65-64 loss to Rutgers at Mackey Arena on Monday.
The stunning defeat marked Purdue’s first loss at Mackey in 364 days, dating back to the Boilermakers’ lone home loss in the 2021-22 season – a five-point loss to Wisconsin. Even in a 10-loss season in 2020-21, Purdue only suffered one of those on its home floor. Suffice to say it doesn’t happen often in West Lafayette, at least not in the past few years.
Now Purdue must play on the road in Columbus, where Ohio State has yet to drop a game in seven contests this season. One of those wins came against the Big Ten foe Purdue just lost to, albeit in similarly close fashion and with the help of a missed call that allowed Tanner Holden to nail a game-winning 3-pointer to notch a one-point conference-opening win at the buzzer.
A WALK-OFF 3 FOR @OhioStateHoops pic.twitter.com/fprzioLyeD
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) December 9, 2022
Not that Chris Holtmann thinks any of that portends an easy night at the office on Thursday.
“Whether you’re playing a team that’s number one in the country or one in the Big Ten standings or at the very bottom, they are challenging games. It’s hard to win,” Holtmann said on 97.1 The Fan Tuesday. “It’s the deepest league in the country. It’s been proven that the last three or four years, by every metric.”
The Buckeyes only seem to be trending upward as of late. Ohio State is fresh off of one of its better wins of the season as it kicked in the new year with a dominant road win over a then-10-2 Northwestern team in its own backyard. Ohio State got out to a 14-3 lead to start, led by as many as 28 points early in the second half and finished with a 73-57 win in Evanston.
Purdue got the better of the Buckeyes in the programs’ last meeting, but that 81-78 victory last January took a Jaden Ivey walk-off game-winner at home to get the Boilermakers over the hump. Purdue won’t have Ivey in this one, and only one of Ohio State’s five starters in that contest (Zed Key) is on the Buckeye roster in 2022-23. Key only logged 12 minutes in the matchup.
He does it again. @BoilerBall's @IveyJaden beats Ohio State at the buzzer for the second straight season. pic.twitter.com/AlDgfPGVgU
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) January 30, 2022
The Boilermakers have yet to face a Buckeye team with Brice Sensabaugh, the freshman sensation who leads the team with an average of 15.9 points per game, and Purdue hasn’t seen Justice Sueing since the 2021 Big Ten Tournament.
Purdue has plenty of changes in its own right, with two of its two top three scorers being freshmen, but the Boilermakers are led by 7-foot-4 center Zach Edey, who Ohio State has matched up with on four occasions over the past couple years. Purdue won three of those matchups, but each Buckeye loss was decided by seven points or fewer.
Now the true top option for Purdue and perhaps the most dominant force in the country as a junior, Edey will be harder to guard than ever before.
“They actually said he might have grown an inch, I hear, in the summer to maybe 7-5 or 7-5-plus, as of what I’ve heard. He’s the largest human we’ve played against, for sure,” Holtmann said. “And I think he does move really well now that he’s three years into college.”
OH MY GOODNESS @jerseymikes | @BoilerBall | @zach_edey
— The Naismith Trophy (@NaismithTrophy) December 4, 2022
pic.twitter.com/i9TUIIz69L
Ohio State has a track record of playing Purdue close, and then there’s the matter of how it’s performed in the last two games against the No. 1 team in the nation. You won’t have to think back that far to recall Ohio State’s most recent victory over the national No. 1.
Duke came to town on Nov. 30, 2021, with the consensus title of top team in the land, and despite leading the Buckeyes by 13 at halftime, Ohio State finished with a five-point win that saw fans rush the court in Columbus. The Buckeyes ruined Coach K’s final trip to the Schottenstein Center as head coach of the Blue Devils and Ohio State picked up considerable momentum en route to a five-game winning streak kicked off by the upset.
Holtmann also has experience beating a Big Ten team that held the No. 1 ranking. In his first year at the helm of the program, Michigan State was 15-1 before meeting Ohio State at the Schott on Jan. 7, 2018. Eventual Big Ten Player of the Year Keita Bates-Diop dropped 32 points on Tom Izzo and company as an unranked Buckeye team blew out the Spartans by 16.
It’s not as though either of those teams was a flash in the pan, either. Led by Izzo and Krzyzewski, those wins came against two of the sport’s most legendary head coaches. Holtmann said Purdue’s Matt Painter is quickly becoming a legend in his own right.
“He’s gonna be touching 400 Big Ten wins here before long. He’s really been a legendary figure in college basketball,” Holtmann said. “I know they and their fan base are hungry for a Final Four for their program, and I think they’ll certainly have a great chance to do so this year.”
The Michigan State win was part of a stretch in which Ohio State won 12 out of 13 games to go from outside the AP Top 25 to a top-10 unit in the country. Perhaps a win over Purdue could lead to a similar stretch for a young Buckeye team with plenty of potential as it trudges on through the Big Ten gauntlet over the next couple months.
