It’s hard to fathom still having a shot at a Big Ten title and laying an egg like the Ohio State basketball team did today. In a game it absolutely had to have, the Buckeyes fell 75-60 thanks to a Maryland team that played harder, smarter, and more engaged.
The Terps raced out to an 8-0 lead, went into the half up by four points, and continued to hold the lead for the remainder of the game thanks to OSU’s inability to get anything consistently going offensively in the second half. The Buckeyes fell in love with the 3-point shot and couldn’t convert. Maryland used a sagging zone defense that gave Liddell and other post players all kinds of problems.
Maryland seemed to be energized by the home crowd, and Ohio State helped by not getting to loose balls, getting outrebounded, and throwing the ball away far too often. It was anything but a winning effort when there was no room for error.
Seemingly the lone bright spot for OSU was the play of Cedric Russell off the bench. He connected on 4-of-5 3-pointers for 12 points. His spark pulled kept OSU in the game in the second half, but a late run by the Terps put the game away. Malaki Branham led the Buckeyes with 13-points, but that was on 4-of-13 shooting.
Final. pic.twitter.com/TPED0jFVrr
— Ohio State Hoops (@OhioStateHoops) February 27, 2022
Ohio State shot just 36.2% from the floor and you simply cannot win games that way. Now, the Buckeyes will have to reset their efforts towards finishing the last three games of the regular season strong to try and get something done in the postseason.
It won’t be a long stay in tournament play if we see this type of effort again.
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