INDIANAPOLIS — Michigan State started the second half of Friday night’s Big Ten quarterfinal against Ohio State with an offensive assault it did not show in the game’s opening 20 minutes. The Spartans came out and scored the first eight points causing Buckeyes head coach Thad Matta to call timeout just 2 minutes, 2 seconds into the second stanza.
After the timeout was called, Matta approached JaQuan Lyle and got right in the ear of his freshman point guard, yelling with the hopes to prove a point. Lyle was taken out of the game and replaced by A.J. Harris, then took a seat on the bench for the next seven minutes as he watched Michigan State pull away from the Buckeyes.
This was a clear moment of frustration for Lyle, but it was also somewhat symbolic of Ohio State’s feeling as a team in its three matchups with the Spartans this year. The Buckeyes were overwhelmed once again by Michigan State in an 81-54 rout at Bankers Life Fieldhouse and officially had their NCAA tournament dreams dashed by the Spartans.
“We’re 30-something games in and it was the same old me and I wasn’t ready to play this game,” a regretful Lyle would say afterward. “He chewed me out and I deserved every bit of it.”
It’s not just that Ohio State lost Friday night’s game — Michigan State is one of the top teams in the country and a national championship contender — but it’s the way it lost. The Buckeyes were outplayed in every facet of the game and, at one point, didn’t look like they had the slightest interest of being on the floor. They reverted back to some old habits and showed their youthfulness yet again.
In the biggest game of Ohio State’s season, that’s what was most disappointing for Matta.
“We reverted back to some November behavior tonight and I look at the poise and connectedness [Michigan State] has and there’s something to be said for that,” Matta said. “Hopefully we see that and have an appreciation for that.”
Now comes the reality that the Buckeyes won’t be heading to the NCAA tournament, not with a 20-13 overall record and just three wins over the RPI’s top-50 teams. It’s almost assuredly going to be a trip to the NIT for Ohio State, snapping the program’s seven-year streak of tournament bids which was seventh-longest in the nation.
The Buckeyes were widely considered a bubble NCAA tournament team entering the 2015-16 season for the simple fact there were so many unknowns. So, if you’re using that metric, Ohio State, frankly, was exactly what it was expected to be this year.
But if you’re an optimist, an NIT bid seemed somewhat farfetched back in November when the Buckeyes started out the year 2-4, so in some senses, even after Friday night’s throttling, there were signs of progress.
Ohio State certainly doesn’t want to go to the NIT — every team wants to play in the NCAA tournament — but the feeling inside the locker room following Friday night’s game was that the Buckeyes knew their fate. They knew a victory against Michigan State was needed to keep those hopes alive and they knew that after they didn’t get it, their shot at the tournament went up in smoke.
“We are just going to prepare for whatever comes next,” redshirt sophomore guard Kam Williams said. “Whoever we play, we’re going to prepare for them and hopefully get a better result.”
This season was always about building for next year with Ohio State. The entire team returns and there were certain flashes this season that this team is capable of playing quality basketball. It certainly wasn’t on display Friday night, but throughout the course of the season you have seen a team get better.
Ultimately, however, the Buckeyes’ inconsistencies were too much to overcome this season and everything reached a boiling point in their third and final loss at the hands of Michigan State.
“It hurts, but at the beginning of the year nobody even expected us to get 20 wins,” Lyle said. “I wouldn’t trade this season for nothing. I just wish we would have learned from our mistakes earlier in the year and had a different outcome.”
