Ohio State finished the regular season on a loss – fitting for a group that had already clinched the most defeats by a Buckeye team since 1997-98.
But Ohio State no longer looks like the team that dropped 14 out of 15 games not long ago. Even in a loss on Saturday, the Buckeyes’ performance on the road against Michigan State was more consistent with their two recent wins than it was with the 21-point home blowout it suffered to the Spartans just three weeks ago.
Already locked in as the No. 13 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, Ohio State had nothing to gain or lose in East Lansing, aside from confidence and momentum heading into the postseason. After winning back-to-back games by double-digit margins entering the weekend, a loss might have taken a little bit of wind out of the Buckeyes’ sails. But the Buckeyes’ confidence remains intact as a result of three vastly improved performances before postseason play.
“I’m confident in our positioning right now. Especially the way everyone’s playing together, our mentality, our process just getting ready for games,” Justice Sueing told reporters at the Breslin Center. “We’re stepping on the floor expecting to win. It’s a thing we have with our walk, just how we are expecting to play. Play Buckeye basketball. We’re going in there ready to get to it.
“We’re going in there trying to win, obviously. We’re trying to get as far as we can to win the Big Ten championship. I feel like I’m really confident in our guys, we made a lot of strides, especially over the past couple of weeks, just with our play and our togetherness. So I’m excited, and we’re gonna take it one game at a time obviously, but we’re gonna go into the off day and get better and recover.”
Early in the first half, it looked like Ohio State might be headed toward another lopsided loss to the Spartans. The Buckeyes surrendered a 17-2 run in the first several minutes that resulted in a 13-point deficit. Ohio State has fallen victim to similar stretches amid its struggles this season, and in many cases, it failed to show much fight thereafter.
Not on Saturday. The Buckeyes cut the Spartan lead to just four points in the first half alone and only trailed by one possession with 5:40 to play in the game. Ohio State didn’t tighten the gap from there, but just to get to that point on Senior Day in East Lansing was commendable.
“I loved our guys’ approach, I loved our guys’ spirit, the way they had about them, which has been consistent with what it’s been the last few weeks,” Chris Holtmann said after the game. “This is a hard place to play. Michigan State’s a good team. It’s the best-shooting Michigan State team since the Final Four team that we played against. I really believe that. They just shoot it at such a high level. They’ve got older kids that are really performing as well as they’ve performed in their career. Give them credit, they made some tough shots. But I loved the way our guys fought and gave ourselves a real chance.”
Improvements were particularly obvious on offense. The Buckeyes mustered their fewest points in 27 years in the first meeting with Michigan State this season, scoring all of 14 in the first half on Feb. 12 and finishing with 41. Despite missing eight straight shots during the aforementioned early Spartan run, the Buckeyes hit 10 of their next 15 in the first half.
Ohio State knocked down its first four shots of the second half and six of its first eight. Ohio State finished with its second-most 3-point makes of the season (11) and its most assists since Jan. 21 (15).
“We had some really good offensive possessions. We had a couple loose ones, too, but I think we had some really good possessions,” Holtmann said. “It was a combination. Like Justice almost had a triple-double, I thought he was phenomenal. Ten points, nine rebounds, seven assists. And I thought we really played quality offensive basketball, for the most part. Sure, all of us might have had a couple possessions we’d like to have back, but it was really a good offensive performance.”
Opting to start four freshmen in a hostile environment late in the season once again, Bruce Thornton and Brice Sensabaugh stepped up to lead the way for the Buckeyes. The pair combined for 41 of Ohio State’s 78 points and hit 14 of their 30 attempts for the floor.
That experience should pay dividends beyond the 2022-23 season for Ohio State’s young players, but given the role they’ll continue to have in the immediate future, perhaps it could pay off as early as the Big Ten Tournament.
“Honestly, I look at it and say, ‘This can be really good for us,’” Holtmann said. “For all these guys to have this experience in these settings – on the road at Purdue starting four (freshmen), here starting four – I think we look at it and say, ‘This can be really good for us moving forward.’ That’s what we hope. That’s what it has to be.”
Ohio State is far removed from NCAA Tournament expectations. But a berth in the Big Dance is not altogether impossible. The Buckeyes would have to win five games in five days in Chicago next week to do so, an unlikely task to say the least, but there’s little doubt that the Buckeyes look more dangerous right now than they did just a couple of weeks ago.
“As we all know, when it’s one-and-done, it’s all about how you play on that given night,” Holtmann said. “The fact of the matter is we have played well in this closing stretch, but it’s all about how you play in a one-and-done situation on that given night. So we’ll need to have great preparation for whoever we play, and continue to play in a way that we’ve played here the last couple weeks and see how it goes from there.”
