Tag: Big Ten-ACC Challenge

Ohio State basketball knocks off No. 1 Duke

Down goes No. 1! #GoBucks

It didn’t look good for a while, but the Ohio State basketball team fought its way through some struggles with turnovers and mistakes to knock off No. 1 Duke 71-66 in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Maybe it can act as a little salve in the wounds after the Buckeyes lost to arch-rival Michigan on the football field Saturday.

It was really a tale of two halves for Ohio State. The Buckeyes shot the ball well in the first half but missed a slew of free throws and turned the ball over nine times in the first 20 minutes, and Duke went into the half up 43-30 and it looked like it would be OSU’s third loss on the year already.

But not so.

Ohio State kept the Blue Devils in arms reach by locking things down on the defensive end. OSU then turned to Zed Key in the paint who had a monster game against an athletic front line, leading all scorers with 20 points, 11 of it coming in the second half.

Still, the Buckeyes didn’t lead until E.J. Liddell knocked down a pair of free throws with just over 1:00 minute left. OSU’s best player also hit a fade-away mid-range jumper with under 20 seconds left to give Ohio State a three-point lead. Duke would misfire from beyond the arc on the next possession and OSU would close it out at the free-throw line with Cedric Russell knocking two free throws down the shoot to ice it.

Liddell and Cedric Russell joined Key in double figures with 14 and 12 respectively as OSU ended the game on a 14-1 run to pull off the improbable.

With the win, Ohio State improves its record to 5-2 and has now beat a No. 1 ranked team while itself being unranked for the ninth time in school history. That mark leads all programs.

The Buckeyes are next in action and open Big Ten play on Saturday against Penn State.

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Ohio State basketball to host Duke in Big Ten/ACC Challenge

Looks like Coach K will make a trip to Columbus on his retirement tour. How excited are you about this?

It looks like Coach K’s retirement tour will have a stop on the campus of Ohio State.

According to a press release by ESPN and later confirmed by OSU’s athletic department, Duke will travel to Ohio State this upcoming season as a part of the annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge.

The game is set to take place on December 30 and will be broadcast by the ESPN family of networks, as will the rest of the event between Big Ten and ACC basketball programs.

This will be the fourth time Ohio State and Duke have met in the challenge, with the Blue Devils owning a 2-1 advantage. The Buckeyes’ only win was of the blowout variety at home in 2011 when OSU won 85-63. The two programs have met seven times overall, again with Duke owning a slight 4-3 advantage. The Blue Devils won the most recent matchup 73-68 in 2012 at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

The rest of the matchups for annual bragging rights between two of the best basketball conferences in the country can be seen below thanks to the Twitter account of ESPN PR.

Overall, Ohio State has an 8-11 in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge but has won two straight, one over UNC in 2019, and then against Notre Dame last season.

No game time has been set for the contest yet, but as that is made available we’ll provide an update.

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Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes and opinion.

Ohio State Basketball to face Notre Dame in ACC/Big Ten Challenge

Ohio State will travel to South Bend to face the Fighting Irish in the ACC Big Ten Challenge on December 8.

It seems odd to be talking about basketball this early into the football season… but I guess technically it’s not early in the football season? Except for the Big Ten. Who knows – it’s hard to keep track of anything in 2020.

It does appear that basketball is going to happen on a closer to normal schedule than football. However, there have already been changes such as a reduced maximum number of games of 24-27, dependent upon if teams play in multi-team events. To add to the uncertainty of the 2020-21 season, the COVID plan for winter sports has not yet been released by the Big Ten.

In spite of the unknown, games are still being scheduled and the ACC/Big Ten challenge matchups have been revealed with Ohio State taking a trip to South Bend to take on the Fighting Irish on Tuesday, December 8.

Notre Dame was 20-12 (10-10 in ACC play) last season before the season was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic. This should be a good test for a Buckeye team who will lose Kaleb Wesson to the NBA draft and several key transfers both in and out of the program.

NEXT … the other matchups of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge

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Ohio State Women’s Basketball upsets No. 2 Louisville 67-60

The Ohio State Buckeyes women’s basketball team upset No. 2 Louisville 67-60 on Thursday night as part of the Big Ten-ACC Challenge.

One night after the Ohio State men’s basketball crushed North Carolina, the women’s team followed up with perhaps something more impressive. Also as part of the Big Ten-ACC challenge, the Buckeyes women’s basketball team took out No. 2 Louisville by a score of 67-60 on Thursday night.

The Buckeyes have not had the greatest start to the season. They played very well in a tough loss to UConn two weeks ago, but they also dropped two early-season games against Ohio and South Dakota. The Buckeyes were clearly talented, but the results weren’t following. Louisville, meanwhile, came into the game undefeated, and had just upset then-No. 1 Oregon on Saturday.

The game was a tight, back-and-forth affair, which highlighted just how much potential these Buckeyes have. No team led by more than nine points, and Ohio State was able to stick with the No. 2 team in the country play for play throughout the game. In an astounding stat, the Buckeyes led for the entirety of the fourth quarter–but the lead stayed between two and six points for the first half of the quarter. Ohio State built the lead to nine after that, then held on as both teams went scoreless for three of the game’s final four minutes.

Four Buckeyes scored in double figures, including Slovenian freshman Rebeka Mikulasikova coming off the bench. Dorka Juhasz, another international player (from Hungary) led Ohio State with 15 points and seven rebounds.

This Buckeyes team is very young–there are only two seniors on the roster, neither of whom saw the floor in this game. The team is also very talented. There are some growing pains that come with the youth, as we saw in losses earlier this season, but there is also a ton of potential, put into action against Louisville. The Buckeyes will soon get another chance to show off just how far they’ve come, as they travel to face No. 1 Stanford a week from Sunday.