Ohio State basketball: Bucks blow lead at Rutgers

The Ohio State basketball team was trying to do something the likes of Purdue, Michigan State, and Iowa could not do; beat Rutgers in New Jersey. It was certainly going to be a tall task because all of those teams I just mentioned are really good teams in the Big Ten.

Ohio State struggled on offense early and late in the game. In the first half, they couldn’t get any half-court offense going at all. It led to them being down one point at the half. The only reason they weren’t down more is that they were killing Rutgers with offensive rebounds.

Midway through the second half, you thought the Buckeyes were going to break away. They started running a crisper offense and their guys started hitting shots. Malaki Branham was great in this one, scoring 19 points on 7-13 shooting. E.J. Liddell was 6-13 for 16 points.

The problem was that Meechie Johnson got hurt with about 6 minutes left in the game. He rolled his ankle and couldn’t put any weight on it. After that, it was all downhill. Rutgers ended the game on a 10-0 run and won the game 66-64. It’s a crushing defeat.

I keep talking about winning the games you need to in this conference to be considered elite. They weren’t able to do that. If this team isn’t able to get out in transition, they can’t score easy buckets and they can’t score enough to win. It’s a major problem as we approach the end of the season.

Credit Rutgers for never quitting and fighting back to win. The Ohio State basketball team needs to pick themselves off the mat and get ready to play TTUN this weekend. Chris Holtmann did a very poor job coaching at the end of the game, drawing up some bad plays down the stretch offensively.

I hate to say it, but this team seems destined for another early exit come March.