Ohio State Basketball: Buckeyes can’t stop Nittany Lions

With an 80-68 victory over Nebraska Tuesday it appeared the Ohio State basketball team was back on track. Not after the 90-76 loss today.

In the first meeting with the Penn State Nittany Lions this season the Ohio State Buckeyes cruised to a 106-74 victory. Today was a different story with the Buckeyes losing by 14 points.

This wasn’t even a game. Ohio State led 4-3 early but trailed the rest of the way. Penn State rolled to a 42-27 lead at halftime and never looked back.

The 90 points were the most points the Buckeyes have allowed this season. The 3rd most, the first meeting with the Nittany Lions.

More on defensive lapses later but first a look at the scoring leaders.

Penn State was led by Lamar Stevens who scored 24 points. The forward had an outstanding shooting game hitting 7-12 field goal attempts, 2-3 from behind the arc and was 8-8 from the foul line. Myreon Jones scored 20 points, Seth Lundy had 12 and Myles Dread 10.

Ohio State was led by Duane Washington’s 20 points, Kaleb Wesson scored 19 and brother Andre added 12.

Quick takes on the Buckeyes’ situation:

The recent problems for Ohio State has been the lack of offensive. Until the game against the Cornhuskers the Buckeyes hadn’t scored 60 points during their losing streak. However, they hadn’t let a team score 70 points the last seven games.

In fact Ohio State has only allowed a team to reach that total three times all year. The only problem there, all three games resulted in Big Ten losses.

Chris Holtmann’s squad had better find some answers, and soon. They are about to face Minnesota Thursday, one of those teams who dropped more than 70 on them. The last time the two teams met the Buckeyes suffered their first loss of the season to the Gophers 84-71.