Ohio State basketball beats hated TTUN in solid effort

The Ohio State basketball team was coming off a crushing loss at Rutgers earlier in the week. TTUN was coming off a huge win over the fourth-ranked team in the country. These teams were coming off complete opposite results heading into Saturday’s meeting in the Crisler Center.

The Buckeyes started off slowly again. The half-court offense was a struggle in the first half. Even so, Ohio State still had a three-point lead heading into halftime. Ohio State also struggled to guard Hunter Dickinson also. Dickinson had 14 points in the game, but it didn’t matter. Ohio State won 68-57.

E.J. Liddell was the best player on the court and he showed it. He was the go-to player for the Buckeyes in the second half and he took over at times. He finished with 28 points and added 3 blocks to go with it. Liddell was the type of player he should be in games like this.

Cedric Russell was another guy who stepped up. With Meechie Johnson missing the game due to an ankle injury, Russell stepped up in a big way. He played a lot of minutes and made the most of them, scoring 12 points off the bench on an efficient 5-8 shooting.

Those two were the only Buckeyes in double-figures in the game. It was a low-scoring slog that had the feel of a slugfest from the moment it tipped off. These are the types of games that Ohio State needs to win. TTUN is a talented team, they just haven’t won enough games.

Any win over TTUN is a good win. Ohio State needs to string a few of these types of wins together to improve their seeding in the NCAA Tournament. If this Ohio State basketball team can get any sort of consistency, they might be able to put a good run together.