The Ohio State basketball team's January slide has started

There was hope that the Ohio State basketball team was going to avoid the annual January slide under Chris Holtmann after they held off Rutgers earlier this week. Despite having a massive lead, the Buckeyes still almost lost to the Scarlet Knights. That ended up being some foreshadowing of what was going to happen.

Ohio State had another lead against IU on Saturday night. They had a 9-point lead early in the second half of this game and it looked like they were going to get a solid win on the road. Instead, the Buckeyes crumbled down the stretch like they did against Rutgers, only their lead wasn't big enough this time.

The Buckeyes ended up losing 71-65 when it was all said and done. Turnovers were a big problem. The Ohio State basketball team finished the game with 14 of them, including 5 from Jamison Battle alone. Battle was the only consistent source of offense though. He was Ohio State's leading scorer, putting in 17 points.

Poor shooting was a problem for the Buckeyes in the second half. They shot under 30% from the field in the second half and finished the game with just 36% shooting. IU also had just 4 turnovers, so that disparity really came back to hurt the Buckeyes.

The biggest issue with this game is that Holtmann wasn't able to stem the tides. He wasn't able to calm the team down and get them some easy buckets later in the game when things were slipping out of reach. He also didn't direct the team to foul when they were down just four with 35 second left in the game.

Losing in January is becoming an annual tradition. Unfortunately, it looks like that's what we are in store for yet again in 2024. I'm hopeful that the Buckeyes can fix that problem this year, but I don't see that happening.