Five Players Score in Double Figures As Ohio State Downs Rutgers 90-68

After three tough losses in January, the Buckeyes now have their fourth straight win as Ohio State cruised past Rutgers 90-68.

The Buckeyes showed once again that they are capable of playing solid defense. Until the team's Jan. 27 game against Michigan State, Ohio State hadn't held an opponent under 20 points in each of the game's four quarters.

The Buckeyes nearly did that for the fourth time in a row before Rutgers put up over 20 points late in the fourth quarter of Thursday's game.

Opponents have averaged just 62.25 points the past four games – the fewest points Ohio State has allowed over a four-game stretch against Big Ten opponents under head coach Kevin McGuff.

Ohio State held Rutgers to just 68 points in the game, marking the fourth-consecutive game the Buckeyes have held their opponent to under 70 points.

"I personally think that the losing streak that we were on kind of motivated us to do better and separate ourselves from our opponents," Linnae Harper said after the game. "We just looked back, watched some film and tried to get better from those games. It's been showing the last four games, so I think it's been paying off."

Opponents have averaged just 62.25 points the past four games – the fewest points Ohio State has allowed over a four-game stretch against Big Ten opponents under head coach McGuff.

"It just feels like we have a little more focus in what we're doing, and the results are reflective of that," McGuff said.

Offensively, the Buckeyes cruised. Four players reached double figures, led by Kelsey Mitchell's 28, as team shot 56 percent from the field and 50 from three-point range.

Ohio State had control for most of the game – but it was a close first quarter. Rutgers scored the game's first points, but the Buckeyes answered and hopped out to a quick 12-6 first-quarter lead.

The Scarlet Knights cut the deficit to just one point with a three-pointer with under a minute on the clock, at which point McGuff took a timeout to refocus his team.

"It was more our communication wasn't good on that," Sierra Calhoun said after the game. "But throughout the game, we kept it up."

From that point on, it was all Buckeyes. Ohio State went on a 12-2 run to take a double-digit lead, and Rutgers never bounced back. The Buckeyes unloaded with 29 points in the second quarter to effectively bury the Scarlet Knights by halftime, taking a 51-30 lead into the intermission.

"We had just a couple things defensively we had to tighten up," McGuff said. "We started getting stops, and stops were leading to transition basketball."

The Buckeyes dominated the game in transition. They forced a relatively-unimpressive 12 turnovers, but scored 25 points in transition off of them.

"We're really aggressive when we turn somebody over," McGuff said. "I thought our kids made great decisions, too, in transition about shot selection. Sometimes you can get going fast and take bad shots, but I don't think we did that tonight."

With the game well at hand, Ohio State continued to coast in the second half. Bench players got extra minutes, and the Buckeyes cruised to a 90-68 victory.

With the win, Ohio State improves to 20-5 overall and 8-3 in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes now have a short respite from conference play this weekend when they travel to face South Florida at 2 p.m.

"We're playing an NCAA Tournament team this weekend on the road," McGuff said of USF. "They have a little different style, but they're very well coached. They have a great offensive team and they run a lot of great actions that we're going to have to defend.

"This will be a huge challenge for us," McGuff said. "And one that hopefully will pay dividends for us in March when we start seeing a lot of different types of styles of play."