In Its Second Loss, Ohio State Shows Where It Is Most Vulnerable

By Tim Shoemaker on December 20, 2014 at 5:11 pm
Roy Williams.
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CHICAGO — It had to feel like deja vu for Ohio State.

In their second game of the season against a top-25 team, the 12th-ranked Buckeyes fell behind early, but rallied late. They struggled offensively. And they also came out on the losing end.

Ohio State fell to North Carolina on Saturday, 82-74, as part of the inaugural CBS Sports Classic. But the game was eerily similar to the Buckeyes' nine-point loss to Louisville back on Dec. 2.

"We seem to bring the best out of a lot of people," Ohio State head coach Thad Matta said. "For us, you could say a positive is scraping, clawing back into it, but we've got to figure out why we're getting in that position in the first half and even early into the second half."

Perhaps the reason the games had very similar results was because both the Tar Heels and Cardinals are similar teams who exposed what appears to be the Buckeyes' biggest weakness — their inability to contest against teams with tall, lengthy, athletic front courts.

Against North Carolina, Ohio State shot a dismal 34.7 percent from the floor. The Buckeyes were just 10 for 29 from 3-point range and they were outrebounded by 13 by the much bigger Tar Heels.

In that loss to Louisville earlier this month, Ohio State shot just 30.4 percent from the floor, 6 for 18 from 3 as Louisville grabbed 46 rebounds as a team.

"We didn't rebound the ball," senior forward Sam Thompson said. "We knew they were going to shoot a ton of 3s and if they weren't shooting a great percentage, the game would be won on the backboards and we didn't do a good job of doing it."

In both games, the Buckeyes fell behind rather quickly as they looked overwhelmed by the type of length and athlete that both Carolina and Louisville had. It resulted in a large halftime deficit that was simply too much to overcome.

Against the Tar Heels, Ohio State shot just 15 for 43 on tries inside the 3-point line. The Buckeyes missed several shots at the rim as they had trouble finishing over the North Carolina big men.

"I mean, they're a long team, but we settled a lot," Ohio State point guard Shannon Scott said. "We shot 29 3-pointers and we don't need to shoot that many 3s to win a game. We need to get inside the paint a little more to make it easier on ourselves."

Against teams like North Carolina with a lot of size, Ohio State needs some kind of production from its big men, too. The Buckeyes didn't get much as Amir Williams, Trey McDonald and Anthony Lee combined for just four points and eight rebounds.

"We need more production out of those guys," Matta said. "Obviously we want to get an inside game established, but there's got to be that element of consistency of knowing what we're going to get at times."

If there's a silver lining for all of this for Ohio State, though, it's that the Buckeyes likely won't face this type of team the rest of the way. North Carolina and Louisville have those dominant front courts that don't exist right now in the Big Ten.

"We've got two losses to two really, really, really good basketball teams, great basketball teams," Matta said. "I think to put ourselves in that position, we've got to look ourselves in the mirror and say, 'Hey, we're not there yet." Which is fine, but we've got to look at all the little things that we have to do to get better and get that established."

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