The same thing that was Ohio State’s greatest strength during its seven-game winning streak earlier this season has been the Buckeyes’ biggest weakness during their latest rough patch.
Ohio State — once one of the Big Ten’s best defensive teams — is now having trouble stopping anybody.
“In the last 120 minutes of basketball, we’ve played 20 minutes,” Buckeyes head coach Thad Matta said on 97.1 The Fan in Columbus following Saturday’s 100-65 blowout loss to Maryland.
Matta certainly isn’t wrong in that assessment as over the last three games Ohio State has played just one half of good basketball. The Buckeyes are 1-2 in that stretch and their two losses — to Indiana and Maryland — have come by a combined 60 points.
The problems all start on the defensive end.
Ohio State is allowing 84.3 points per game and teams are shooting 49.1 percent from the field and 39.4 percent from behind the 3-point line over the last three games. Exclude the second half of the win over Rutgers — the only successful defensive half the Buckeyes have played in the last three games — and those shooting numbers jump up to 51.9 percent from the floor and 43.8 percent from 3.
In the last six halves of basketball, Ohio State has allowed 40-plus points in four of them.
That’s simply not going to get it done.
“Both away games we had, they’ve just had those days where they hit everything,” Ohio State sophomore forward Jae’Sean Tate said following the loss to the Terps. “On the defensive side, we’ve just got to communicate better. When it gets a little loud in hostile environments, that just means we’ve got to talk a little bit more.”
The numbers are so eye-popping because of how the Buckeyes played during that stretch a few weeks back when they won seven-straight games. During that span, Ohio State limited its opponents to an average of 59.1 points per game and held teams to just 34.6 percent shooting from the field and 31.1 percent from behind the 3-point line.
Instead, the Buckeyes have resorted back to the kind of defense they were playing during their four-game losing streak earlier this season. Ohio State is having trouble containing the dribble-drive and defending pick-and-roll situations and, as a result, teams have been able to get into the paint for easy baskets or they’ve been successful in drive-and-kick scenarios for open jumpers.
“There are certain things we have to do, and I’ve said this all along: We don’t have a quote-unquote — like we’ve had for the last nine years — defensive stopper,” Matta said. “Five guys have to be connected and we’re not in position.”
Defense has been a staple of Ohio State for as long as Matta has been around. If the Buckeyes don’t get back to how they were playing on that end of the floor — or at least show some improvement — it could be a long rest of the Big Ten season.
Ohio State feels confident it can get back to playing that level of defense.
“We could be the team that won seven straight and held everybody under 40 percent or whatever it was,” sophomore forward Keita Bates-Diop said. “But that comes with consistency and the effort and all that. Coming day in and day out and doing the same thing.”
