Ohio State fans were already fed up with close calls and moral victories.
As of late, even that seems too high an expectation.
The Buckeyes have now been blown out in back-to-back-to-back games, culminating in a 27-point throttling at the hands of Purdue in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Sunday. It was the third straight game in which Ohio State was drubbed by 17 points or more.
Purdue dropped three of its past four games entering Sunday, but don’t get it twisted; the Boilermakers are one of the best teams in the country. Purdue has been the No. 1 team in the AP Poll for most of 2023 thus far and possesses perhaps the Naismith Men's National Player of the Year in 7-foot-4 center Zach Edey.
The Boilermakers already beat Ohio State at the Schottenstein Center last month, and on Sunday, they hosted the scarlet and gray in Mackey Arena, a venue where they’ve only lost once all year. Not to mention, Ohio State was without starting center Zed Key (shoulder), which made the prospect of defending the Big Ten’s leading scorer all the more daunting.
Zed Key looking on from the sideline as the Buckeyes warm up at Mackey pic.twitter.com/g6QD1vld8U
— Griffin Strom (@GriffinStrom3) February 19, 2023
To make an uphill battle even steeper, Chris Holtmann started four true freshmen for the first time all season, including Felix Okpara in place of the injured Key.
“Listen, those guys have competed all year and played a lot of minutes at this point. That’s a tough thing for those guys to do on the road with the top two or three team in the country,” Holtmann said after the game. “I think that’s a tough thing for those guys. But again, they helped our start be really good, and minus some foul trouble, I think those guys did some really good things.”
Ohio State opened as a double-digit underdog, but the final result was even more lopsided than oddsmakers foresaw. The Buckeyes led for nearly the first four minutes before surrendering the edge for the afternoon. Ohio State trailed by as many as 11 points in the first half and needed to come back from a nine-point deficit to stop a seven-game losing streak.
Those who have paid close attention to Ohio State’s exploits over the past two months knew that wasn’t likely to materialize.
Edey dominated the Buckeyes early and often, taking advantage of Key’s absence to score 16 points against Okpara, 6-foot-7 guard Eugene Brown and even Owen Spencer – who began the year as a walk-on – in the first half. Any matchup Ohio State threw at the big man quickly became futile, and Edey put several of his defenders in foul trouble.
“You see it. It’s a constant battle,” said Brown of defending Edey. “Every 30 seconds of the shot clock, you’re just constantly battling with him. Just trying to make it tough for him, make it hard. And, of course,e he’s 7-4. He’s got feet on you. It’s just tough, honestly.”
Ohio State’s best hope was that Edey would slow down in the second half. Only he didn’t. Edey didn’t have to play much, scoring 10 points in just nine minutes of action, but it was plenty to put the Buckeyes in a hole they were incapable of climbing out of. He finished with 26 points on 11-for-20 from the field.
During a 12-3 stretch toward the start of the half in which Purdue took a 21-point lead, Edey scored eight points for the Boilermakers. Then, even without Edey, Purdue outscored 17-7 from 11:55 to 2:27 to put a distinct damper on Ohio State’s day with a 31-point deficit.
When all was said and done, Purdue outrebounded Ohio State by 23, doubled the Buckeyes’ total of points in the paint and outscored them in bench production 32-19. It was a thorough and complete beating and the most lopsided of the season for Ohio State.
Sound familiar?
It was only last Sunday that Ohio State suffered a loss of 20 or more points for the first time all year. Last weekend the Buckeyes’ 62-41 defeat to Michigan State looked like its worst performance of the season. Before that, nine of Ohio State’s 10 losses in an 11-game stretch came by single-digit margins.
Ohio State hasn’t returned to such a trajectory since. Games are no longer within the Buckeyes’ reach before slipping out in the final few minutes. Many of them are more or less decided by halftime, with Ohio State failing to get back in front at any point in the final period.
Given the results of the past three games, it’s difficult not to feel like the Buckeyes' effort continues to trend downward, even if the team doesn’t feel that way.
"There were some really good moments. But obviously not the outcome we wanted.”– Chris Holtmann
“I definitely feel like we played hard enough. Coach was emphasizing we just need to play the right way, just continue to do what we do and results will come," Brown said. "I think today’s probably the best we played in a while, even though we didn’t get the result we wanted. It’s a tough team, but I feel like it’s the best we played in a minute.”
That might sound strange on the heels of a 27-point demolition, but Isaac Likekele clarified that “he’s not meaning that we played in a good enough way to win, obviously that wasn’t the case.”
“I thought we played really hard. I thought we competed, followed the game plan really well,” Holtmann said. “I think the foul trouble hurt us a little bit. I thought when we were good offensively, the ball moved better than it had. I thought defensively we competed and competed on the glass. There were some really good moments. But obviously not the outcome we wanted.”
But while Holtmann and the Buckeyes may still be taking solace in small silver linings, fans can’t be expected to follow suit until they lead to wins on the hardwood. And that window is shrinking in short order with four games remaining on the regular-season schedule.
