Ohio State basketball makes too many mistakes early in loss to Xavier

The Ohio State basketball team played their first road game of the season on Thursday night. They played Xavier as part of the Gavitt games. We knew going into the game that it was going to be tough for the Buckeyes to win. That ended up being true, as they lost 71-65.

Ohio State couldn’t stop Xavier from getting to the rim early and couldn’t get enough buckets of their own. They allowed 8 layups or dunks in the first half and found themselves in a 9-point hole. They hemorrhaged points anytime E.J. Liddell sat on the bench.

Speaking of Liddell, he was once again sensational. He had 8 blocks in this game to go along with his 17 points and 7 rebounds. He was being keyed on the whole game and was still able to be effective offensively, especially early in the second half. The problem is that it was too little too late.

Ohio State wasn’t able to get enough stops to make up the difference. Meechie Johnson Jr. was the only other player who did anything offensively, hitting three three-point shots and finishing with 14 points. Everyone else turned the ball over too much early to give the team a chance to come back late.

Malaki Branham missed four layups at the rim and Johnson missed a layup at the end of the game that could have cut it to two. This team just made too many mistakes early in the game, and they paid for it. Quite frankly, they didn’t deserve to win.

The Ohio State basketball team will most likely now fall out of the top 25 after this. They should. They have looked good in precisely one game this season, and that was against Bowling Green. Chris Holtmann has some serious issues with his team.

If Holtmann can’t fix this team soon, this season could get real ugly real fast.