Ohio State Basketball team still learning how to close games

The Ohio State basketball team was not able to close out North Carolina on Saturday in the CBS Sports Classic despite having a double-digit lead late in the second half. They ended up giving North Carolina a shot to send it to overtime and ultimately lost in the extra period.

It’s one of the growing pain games that you expect to see with such a young team. The Buckeyes have a lot of guys out there that haven’t played a lot of college basketball. Bruce Thornton and Brice Sensabaugh are two guys who are getting a lot of minutes on this team and they are true freshmen.

Not only has this team not played a lot of college basketball, but they haven’t played a lot with each other. Almost this entire team is new from what it was a year ago. Chemistry takes time to build. One of the attributes that come along with chemistry is learning how to close games out.

The Buckeyes have had a mixed bag when it comes to closing out these close games so far. They were able to beat Rutgers on a buzzer-beater in the game previous to the CBS Sports Classic, but they also couldn’t find a way to close the gap against Duke.

In that Duke game, the Buckeyes were able to get as close as five points with under four minutes to go, but couldn’t quite find enough to beat them. That can be used as a learning experience as Big Ten play approaches and Ohio State will have to play some really good teams.

The Ohio State basketball team takes on Maine tomorrow night and then has a game against Alabama A&M before Big Ten Play starts on the first of the year. They can use those two games to increase the chemistry they have and define roles before the meat of the schedule takes hold.