Fresh off a thrilling 89–88 double-overtime victory on the road against Minnesota, the Ohio State Buckeyes men’s basketball team returned to their home floor for a matchup against Big Ten newcomer Oregon.
The Oregon Ducks, ranked 15th in the country, entered the contest at 13-2. Both of those losses came in conference play: a two-point loss at home to UCLA and a 32-point blowout loss at home against Illinois. The Ducks bounced back nicely in their most recent contest with a four-point victory over Maryland, a team that handled the Buckeyes in early December. However, they found themselves slated as the underdog on the road.
The 10-5 Buckeyes lost a tight one in their last home contest against Tom Izzo’s Michigan State Spartans. With the fight shown in that contest, and their quadrant-one victory against the Kentucky Wildcats a few short weeks ago, Jake Diebler’s team was poised to continue the university’s recent trend of defeating the Ducks in front of 10,631 fans.
The first half got off to a slow start, with the first basket of the game—a three-pointer by Micah Parrish—coming after 1:06 had passed. Once that first basket went down, both teams took turns exchanging buckets. The lead changed only twice in the first half, but the game was tied six times. Oregon took the lead at 16-14 with 10:30 left in the first half after a Keeshawn Barthelemy jump shot. However, after a free throw by Ohio State’s Sean Stewart with 10:11 left on the clock, the game was tied again. Stewart then made a layup to give the Buckeyes an 18-16 lead, which they held for the rest of the half. The lead grew as big as eight points, thanks to missed shots by the Ducks and a stout defensive effort by the Buckeyes. Oregon’s longest first-half scoring drought lasted four minutes and twenty-three seconds. Ohio State took a five-point lead into the locker room at 32-27.
The Buckeyes then started the second half with the basketball and got whistled for an offensive foul 17 seconds into the half. Oregon scored quickly off the turnover on a Jadrian Tracey jumper, and all of a sudden the OSU lead was only three. Suddenly it felt as if the momentum was shifting, and Oregon had turned the tide in their favor. However, the Buckeyes pieced a few buckets together and quickly halted any Oregon momentum. With 16:38 left in the contest, they grabbed their largest lead of the game, 41-32, after a Bruce Thornton jumper, and the lead hung around the five to nine point range for the next eight minutes as the pesky Ducks would not go away. With 8:25 left in the half, Brandon Angel knocked down two free throws to trim the Ohio State lead back to three points. The Scarlet and Gray weathered that storm and were able to grow that lead back to nine, but again Oregon continued to claw back. They trimmed the deficit to two and with 1:35 on the game clock, Oregon’s Jackson Shelstad knocked down a three to give Oregon their first lead of the game since the clock read 10:11 in the first half. Trailing by three, Ohio State had the ball with 37.2 seconds remaining. Bruce Thornton took a three-pointer with 24 seconds left, missed, and Evan Mahaffey grabbed the offensive rebound and scored on the put-back to cut the deficit to one. Thornton then forced a turnover and passed to John Mobley Jr., who was fouled on a layup attempt. Mobley calmly sank both free throws, giving the Buckeyes a one-point lead with 12 seconds remaining. On the following possession, Oregon was fouled, and Jackson Shelstad made both free throws to reclaim a one point lead. With a timeout still available, Coach Diebler chose not to use it as the Buckeyes, trailing by one, attempted a three-pointer that missed, effectively ending the game. Oregon went to the free-throw line with 0.6 seconds remaining after a foul by Evan Mahaffey. Nate Bittle made the first free throw and intentionally missed the second, leaving Ohio State without enough time to set up and take a final shot. The game concluded with a final score of Oregon 73, Ohio State 71.
Pacing the Ohio State offense was Bruce Thornton with 20 points. Three others scored in double figures: John Mobley Jr. with 16, Sean Stewart with 14, and Micah Parrish with 11 points. Devin Royal had a quiet night offensively, but hauled in 9 rebounds. Two Oregon players scored 62% of the Ducks points: Jackson Shelstad with 24 and Nate Bittle with 21. Bittle also secured 8 rebounds.
Coach Diebler expressed disappointment in the game's outcome and emphasized the importance of using this experience against a top-15 team to improve while remaining optimistic:
“Not the one we wanted, or felt like we could have gotten, but like we will not waste this, this will be used to get better and we gotta do that, and we have no choice but to do that…I am optimistic because this, clearly we did not play near as well as we are capable of, and we, you know, had the number 15 team on the ropes and very easily could’ve got a different result…so I’m gonna choose to look at it that way.”
Diebler was asked about his choice to not take a timeout down a point with 7.5 seconds left in the game and expressed his confidence in Bruce Thornton popping a three:
“Yeah, so here was my thought process and that…I didn't want them to be able to really fully set up and kinda like, with time, their press to slow us down. I felt like a play we have practiced since August, we can get it in and get it up the floor quickly, and we have Bruce going to his right hand, I like that a lot for us…he’s very good in that situation”
I asked Coach how he felt about the performance of Ohio’s 2024 Mr. Basketball, Colin White, in today’s game, as well as the performance of all his underclassmen who are seeing playing time as they approach the halfway point of the season. Starting with White, Diebler praised his efforts in today’s game. He noted that, even before reviewing the film, he believes he should have given him additional playing time, considering the impact he had on the court during the game. Diebler is also happy with his underclassmen play, and mentioned the improvements he notices them making, but stressed the importance of fighting for wins.
This is the kind of game you’ll always look back on and know you should have won. The Buckeyes led for thirty minutes and eight seconds, with their largest advantage reaching nine points. Meanwhile, the Ducks held the lead for just five minutes and six seconds. Despite this control for a majority of the game, Ohio State was not able to close it out in the final moments. This loss will undoubtedly sting for a while, but their goals are still in front of them. This team must analyze the film, focus on improving their ability to close out tight games, and shift their mindset to the next challenge: a road matchup against a really good, 12-3 Wisconsin team.
The next game against the Badgers will tip off at 9:00 PM ET in Madison, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, January 14th. VSBN will be back in Columbus for the Buckeyes matchup with the Indiana Hoosiers next Friday.