Ohio State basketball falls just short of beating Duke

The Ohio State basketball team was able to beat Duke in last year’s version of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. They did so at the Schott despite being down 13 at halftime. Unfortunately, the Buckeyes weren’t able to recreate that magic at Cameron Indoor Stadium this year.

Even though they gave a valiant effort, the Buckeyes fell just short 78-70. They had a tough time dealing with Duke’s size all night. The Blue Devils start to players who are over seven feet tall, and it showed on the box score. Ohio State was out-rebounded on the offensive glass.

Zed Key did his best to try to keep his team in it. He had a career-high 21 points on 7-9 shooting. He added 8 rebounds, 2 steals, and an assist. The rest of the team just couldn’t help him enough, specifically when it came to taking care of the ball.

The Ohio State basketball team had a whopping 16 turnovers. It’s hard to win on the road against a good team when you turn it over that much. Bruce Thornton had four of them, but he also added 11 points and looked good shooting the ball most of the game.

The Buckeye who played the worst was by far Brice Sensabaugh. The freshman struggled all night, only scoring four points on 2-6 shooting with three turnovers. He also was bad on the defensive end and let guys go around him for offensive rebounds. He didn’t play much in the second half because of that.

It was a tough day for a young team. This team still has a lot of time to grow and play better as Big Ten play comes. They do still have to play North Carolina as well so they have one more tough non-conference game. But this game went about as I expected.

This Buckeye team is above average, just not great. This is the result of a team of that caliber. They got beat by a team that was better than them. Nothing to be ashamed about.