Ohio State Basketball escapes Ann Arbor with a huge conference win against their rival. Here are three takeaways from the game.
Ohio State Basketball is now on a three-game winning streak as they go on the road and defeat Michigan 61-58 in Ann Arbor. The Big Ten has been the hardest conference in the country to win on the road and by doing so at their rival the Buckeyes move to 15-7 and at the time this article was written move up to number eight in the Big Ten. Ohio State earned every point in this hard-fought game that felt more like a football game at times than a basketball game. Here are three takeaways from the game.
1 – Kaleb Wesson
The Buckeye big man scored in every way possible as he lead the way. Wesson finished with 23 points going 9-14 from the floor and 3-6 from three-point land. He also added 12 rebounds with 10 of those coming from the defensive side of the floor. His versatility working inside and out really countered the height of the Wolverines and that may have been the best defense against them. Kaleb is clearly the leader of this team and the Buckeyes should keep the offense running through him moving forward.
2 – Offensive spacing
Ohio State as a team did a great job duplicating the first half of their victory against Indiana this past Saturday. Throughout the entire game, they did an amazing job of spacing the floor on offense and kept the ball moving. By doing this the Buckeyes took very little bad shots, got good open shots, was able to move Kaleb to the open spots on the floor when no one else had an open look, and didn’t allow Michigan to use their length to congest entire areas and close off lanes. This kind of offensive movement needs to keep happening for Ohio State to build off of this winning streak and continue to succeed to get into the tournament and play basketball in March.
3 – Turnovers
The Buckeyes won the turnover battle. I always say turnovers are the worst, but they are even worse when you are the road. Coming into this game Ohio State averaged 13.5 turnovers per game, but finished with just eight turnovers while Michigan had 12 turnovers for the game which is actually a little above their average turnovers per game.
By limiting their turnovers the Buckeyes kept the crowd pretty quiet for most of the game, didn’t allow many fastbreak points, and kept the Wolverines from going on any kind of run as the largest lead they got against the Buckeyes was just three.
Even when down Ohio State was always within a single possession and those things are so important when you play an important game in a hostile environment.