Big Ten Basketball: Ohio State plays role of desperate home team vs. Michigan State
Ohio State earns their first Big Ten basketball win of the season against Michigan State at home.
It’s been a rough last couple of weeks for the Ohio State Buckeyes. They started 0-4 in Big Ten play and many started to question the direction of the program, especially with the Buckeyes’ failure to find quality talent in the last two recruiting classes.
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On Sunday, Ohio State made a statement with their victory at home over the Michigan State Spartans, 72-67. The Buckeyes controlled the game for most of the afternoon to earn their first Big Ten victory of the 2016-17 campaign.
All five Buckeye starters scored in double figures, but JaQuan Lyle led the way with 22 points on 8-of-12 shooting, six assists and four rebounds. Marc Loving had five turnovers, including multiple traveling violations, but recorded 12 points and snagged seven boards. Jae’Sean Tate was also terrific, as he added 12 points and grabbed the game clinching rebounding after a Joshua Langford miss with five seconds to go.
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Both teams were sloppy for most of the afternoon, however, the Buckeyes turned the ball over only 11 total times to the Spartans’ 17. They also out-played Michigan State from the free throw line, shooting 70 percent to MSU’s 57 percent.
But this game was won because of Lyle’s heroics and the desperation that Ohio State played with.
With the schedule they have coming up they could ill afford to lose a home battle against a beatable Michigan State team. The Buckeyes have to travel to Nebraska before hosting Northwestern and Minnesota. Then they travel to Iowa City to take on the Hawkeyes before arriving back home for a match-up against Maryland.
There’s absolutely no gimmes on that schedule, proving just how important Sunday’s match-up was.
And it’s not like this Buckeyes team is lacking talent. Sure, 4/5th’s of their 2015 recruiting class opted to transfer, their 2016 class has yet to make a significant impact and they don’t have any quality prospects committed in 2017, but this is still a roster that has just one senior.
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That senior, Loving, is terrific, but Lyle, Tate, Micah Potter, C.J. Jackson, Kam Williams and Trevor Thompson will all be in the fold next season. Also, Keita Bates-Diop has dealt with injuries all season and will miss the rest of the year due to a stress fracture in his leg.
It’s not time to hype Ohio State up as potential Big Ten contenders in 2017-18 or anytime soon, however, to get extreme and call for Thad Matta’s job would be overlooking the limitations of a current young roster.
While this was a good win for the Buckeyes, this is a difficult loss for the Spartans. And it’s not the first time it’s happened in conference play — they lost against Penn State at The Palestra last weekend.
The Spartans are still a team that is thin in the front court (they got crushed on the glass in the 1st half) and are still relying on four freshman to carry hefty loads. Miles Bridges looks up-and-down in his current offensive role, 24 points, nine rebounds and six turnovers, and hasn’t received much help as of late (zero other players in double figures against OSU).
But that does not mean we are counting out Michigan State in regards to anything. They still have the potential to make a deep run in March because of the man on the sidelines (Tom Izzo) and their ability to move the basketball. They continue to lack a true offensive creator (Bridges is improving), but they thrive in ball screen actions and with ball movement.
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The Big Ten Conference is all over the place because of the depth of the league and the lack of a true dominant force. That’s good news for both of these teams, as they can still thrive despite their flaws.