Based on the attendance for a home game against the No. 10 team in the country, it appears many Ohio State fans consider this a lost season – or, at the very least, unworthy of their time.
The Buckeyes have dropped four consecutive games with Connecticut and Kentucky still awaiting OSU before the non-conference schedule wraps up. Things may not be as bad as they seem, though. At this point, Ohio State is one of the unluckiest teams in the nation relative to how efficient they are on both ends of the court.
Thad Matta highlighted two ways his team could improve upon coming into Tuesday's game against Virginia: defend without fouling and limit turnovers. If the Buckeyes wanted to reverse their poor luck, they needed to be more consistent in both areas.
Attacking the Cavs with High Ball Screens
Anytime Ohio State involved the five in a pick-and-roll situation, Virginia hedged hard with either the 7-foot tall Mike Tobey or 6-foot-11-inch Jack Salt. Their pack-line defense forced OSU's turnover-prone guards to get rid of the ball without the ability to turn the corner or get into the paint.
Marc Loving – inexperienced in high screen and roll situations – attempted to split two defenders and it did not end well. Better communication between him and Daniel Giddens could've prevented this:
On their next trip down the floor, the Buckeyes ran the same play with JaQuan Lyle as the ball-handler. The Cavaliers typically do a better job of rotating in these situations, but the threat of leaving Keita Bates-Diop or Kam Williams completely open for three allowed Giddens to catch and attempt a shot. Watch as a patient Lyle fires a pass to him before Darius Thompson has a chance to fully recover from the screen:
Interior Play, Virginia's Second chances
Giddens displayed a couple impressive and decisive post moves Tuesday night, but he's hardly a go-to player down on the blocks. Virginia sent an array of double teams at him anyway – both delayed and immediately after the entry pass.
Perhaps the Cavs felt Giddens would turn it over when pressured given his lack of experience facing double teams in college. He didn't on this possession, a sequence featuring beautiful ball movement by the Buckeyes:
Rebounding is pretty far down the list of concerns with this young Ohio State squad. For the season, OSU's defensive rebounding rate is 73.3 percent, above average for a college team. Reflective of the larger communication issues that will only be resolved with more experience, protecting the glass was an issue against Virginia.
The Cavs rank among the best in the country on the offensive glass and scored 10 second-chance points, Tuesday. When the defense is scrambling, someone has to rotate towards and box out their bigs. This may be the easiest basket Salt scores all year:
Mistakes Down the Stretch
In a press conference prior to Tuesday's game, Matta stressed discipline on defense.
"What’s one thing we have to get better at? It’s our field-goal free-throw defense because teams are shooting the most ridiculous percent against us the last few games," he said. "Obviously, the way to do that is to keep them off the line. We’ve always been a program that did not foul very much and to commit 28 fouls in a game, typically we average 14 or 15 in a game, that’s where we’ve got to just get a grip on what we’re trying to do but constantly be making the adjustment of how the game is being called."
Ohio State drastically improved in that area. Virginia attempted only 13 free throws, six of which occurred after intentional fouls within the final minute.
We know Giddens can fly in from the weakside and swat one into the stands. He was also a foul-prone culprit by committing five in Friday's overtime contest against Memphis. Giddens followed it with only two fouls, Tuesday. Consider this effort a sign of progress, as he rotates off Salt and challenges Malcolm Brogdon:
The Buckeyes consistently defended without fouling until a key possession late in the second half. Facing a four-point deficit, OSU had plenty of time to get a stop and a bucket on the other end without sending the Cavs to the line.
Instead, Jae'Sean Tate bit on an Anthony Gill pump fake, fouling him and resetting the shot clock:
It forced Ohio State to foul to extend the game. Despite Matta's orders from the bench on the other side of the floor, his team wasted 16 seconds before fouling again.
Turnovers weren't much of an issue early, either. It cropped up again towards the end of the second half: the Buckeyes turned it over five times in the final 10 minutes of the game. Marc Loving committed a pair of unforced turnovers on back-to-back possessions with OSU down six.
"One of the biggest things is we’ve got to take better care of the basketball, we’ve got to value the ball more. Some things happened in that game [against Memphis] literally I shook my head and said, 'In my worst nightmares this couldn’t happen,'" Matta said. "Just unforced and those are things that tripping over our own feet, dribbling off our own feet, throwing a pass across court on a 5 on 3 that I catch. We’ve got to do a better job of saying, ‘Hey, this orange thing has got to mean more to us.’"
A key defensive possession occurred following a turnover and a missed open three by Bates-Diop. It's a good example of mistakes compounding in another loss.
Lyle doubles down on Gill one pass away, leaving Thompson – a 46.7 percent three-point shooter. Loving rotates over and the ball finds Virginia's leading-scorer Brogdon:
If Ohio State plays as disciplined as they did in the first 30 minutes and cleans up some of their late-game execution, they have enough talent to win the majority of their remaining games.
