As Ohio State keeps failing to capture big résumé-building wins – its latest shortcoming against then-No. 15 Virginia in a very winnable game on Saturday – it keeps finding itself in do-or-die games for an at-large NCAA Tournament bid.
The first couple of such contests arrived at Maryland and against USC, both games in which the Buckeyes prevailed. But on the docket next is a team that’s been better than both the Trojans and Terrapins, a team that beat the Buckeyes earlier this year. That team is No. 24 Wisconsin.
“We've got to take care of the ball at a high level against them to keep them out of transition,” Diebler said Monday of facing the Badgers. “And we’ve got to manufacture some better looks through our ball and body movement. And listen, we’ve got to fight fatigue better. That's simple.”
If Ohio State is to keep serious hope for an end to its four-year NCAA Tournament drought alive, it must avenge the 92-82 loss Wisconsin handed the Buckeyes in Madison within the confines of the Schottenstein Center – and with fewer hands than last time as John Mobley Jr. remains sidelined with a hand injury.
“Big-time game,” Diebler said. “We're excited about it. I think this team has shown an ability to respond in a big way. And there's no reason for me to believe we're not going to do that.”
Jake Diebler and Ohio State need a better result than when they last played Wisconsin. Photo credit: Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
The Buckeyes have played textbook .500 basketball their past eight games. Four wins, four losses, not a single pair of wins or losses coming in back-to-back contests. They’ve continued toeing the Big Dance bubble line as a result. But it’s slowly trending them away from the NCAA Tournament.
Ohio State has gone from the right side of the bubble to the wrong side. Bracket Matrix, which aggregated 112 NCAA Tournament bracket projections from publications in its most recent update, places the Buckeyes as the third team out. Only 21.4% of the 112 brackets have OSU reaching the tourney if the season ended today.
Some of the biggest names in bracketology agree with the aggregate. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has Ohio State as his second team out. FOX’s Mike Decourcy has Ohio State as the third team out. CBS Sports now places the Buckeyes as its fourth team out in its Monday update. OSU can’t afford to lose a Quad 2 home matchup with Wisconsin with three Quad 1 games to follow: at No. 15 Michigan State, at Iowa and back home vs. No. 7 Purdue.
“I think this team has shown an ability to respond in a big way. And there's no reason for me to believe we're not going to do that.”– Jake Diebler on Ohio State's potential for a bounce-back win against Wisconsin
Ohio State will be playing its fifth game in 13 days when it tips off against Wisconsin. The Buckeyes are fresh off a distressing loss and without Mobley, their second-leading scorer. Thornton played 38 minutes against Virginia, but his 28 points weren’t enough for a win. Freshman Amare Bynum and Christoph Tilly were the only other players to score more than four points, with 15 and 11. As a team, OSU scored seven points in the final 10 minutes to blow a six-point lead from that point.
Fatigue played a role. Four Buckeyes played more than 30 minutes, while only one Cavalier, guard Dallin Hall, played more than 28. Nine different Virginia players saw at least 14 minutes of action.
“Our best offense came when we were able to get rebounds or force turnovers and get out and score early in the (shot) clock,” Diebler said. “We got a little fatigued there as far as being able to do that at the level we were capable of. But in that stretch, we had probably two or three shots right at the rim that we had made for the earlier part of that game. So that hurt, compounded with some of our turnovers. We had a stretch there where it was like three or four turnovers in a row. That was a big issue because our defense was holding serve. ... But, offensively, we didn't quite have enough collectively to go down and finish the game.”
Diebler also said that Ohio State’s execution in after-timeout and inbounding situations was lacking. The Buckeyes had three ATO plays in those final 10 minutes against the Cavaliers. One resulted in a turnover, and another a missed 3-pointer by center Christoph Tilly before Amare Bynum made a triple out of a timeout with 33 seconds remaining. There were many more mistakes on inbounding plays.
“This has been a team that was, for the bulk of this season, really good coming out of timeouts,” Diebler said of his squad. “We were efficient. We were executing well. Last game, we weren't. And there's no denying that. So, we watched all those situations and scenarios and identified why that was. I think when you take out an important piece like (Mobley) in those moments, it can cause you to adjust, which we had to. But we didn't handle the need to adjust in those moments like we should have.
“Statistically, for the bulk of the season, we've been really good in those situations coming out of timeouts. That wasn't the case that game. And I’ve certainly got to take a bulk of that responsibility. I got to find a way to get our guys executing better than we did against Virginia in those.”
Wisconsin, by sharp contrast, is riding a wave of momentum into Columbus.
The Badgers are fresh off back-to-back wins over then-No. 10 Michigan State and then-No. 8 Illinois. They’ve scored 90 points in three of their last four games. When Ohio State and Wisconsin last played, it was a faceoff between two teams on the bubble. The Badgers are now a bona fide NCAA Tournament team and ranked in the AP poll for the first time since Nov. 17. They’re 33rd in NET, however, three spots short of being a Quad 1 opponent for Ohio State since the Buckeyes play them at home.
Guards Nick Boyd and John Blackwell lead the charge for Wisconsin, scoring 20.6 and 19 points per game. Nolan Winter is also a menace at center, close to averaging a double-double with 13.7 points and 9 rebounds per game, adding some rim protection with 1.2 blocks per contest. Boyd and Blackwell collected 21 and 22 points against Ohio State on Jan. 31.
Nick Boyd is Wisconsin's leading scorer this season and delivered 21 points in his first game vs. Ohio State this year. Photo credit: (Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
Wisconsin held Ohio State at arm’s length in the two sides’ previous matchup, maintaining a three-possession lead for the final 19 minutes of play. The Badgers make the ninth-most 3-pointers per game in the country (11.2) and shoot 35.3% behind the arc as a team (103rd nationally), but a 42-30 advantage for Wisconsin in points in the paint and a 16-6 advantage in points off of turnovers were the separators for UW on that night.
“I think the way they finished in the paint and the way we finished in the paint was a big difference in the game,” Diebler said. “So, we got to be more efficient in the paint this game, and we got to do a better job protecting the rim. And part of that is making sure they're not able to get the ball in the paint off their transition offense early. Boyd’s really dynamic in transition. Taking care of the ball on our end is a big part of that.”
Above all, Ohio State needs a response bigger than any it’s had this season, which is still somehow yet to feature back-to-back losses. Devin Royal needs a bigger night than his 2-of-12 shooting performance against the Cavaliers. Taison Chatman cooled off from a few double-figure scoring performances to manage just four points in his first career start. And the Buckeyes need to somehow, someway, find bench production.
Time to see if the Buckeyes can survive their latest do-or-die venture.
“I think it speaks to the toughness we’ve got in our locker room,” Diebler said of Ohio State’s previous bounce-backs from losses. “And guys have continued to show an ability to respond. We talk all the time about being able to move on to the next play and, really, next game, win or lose, because getting comfortable when you win isn't the answer either. And so we've just really focused on our approach and how we practice. ... It's time to kind of break that streak (of .500 basketball) in regards to get a positive streak going, right? Like, it's that time of year.”
