Ohio State 83, UW 73: Slow start kills Badgers
COLUMBUS, Ohio - So this is how you play with a Big Ten regular-season title still within reach?
Wisconsin played its worst half of the season in the first 20 minutes, followed that with a slightly better effort in the second half but still suffered a humbling 83-73 loss to Ohio State on Thursday night at Value City Arena.
"You’ve always got to be fearful of a team that has nothing to lose," UW senior guard Bronson Koenig said of the unranked Buckeyes. "That’s kind of what happened tonight. They just were tougher than us. They beat us to loose balls. They played harder than us and that is something we pride ourselves on.
"Hopefully, this is another wake-up call and we don’t have to have too many of these...I didn’t expect this at all."
As a result of the ugly loss, the 15th-ranked Badgers (22-6, 11-4) trail first-place Purdue (23-5, 12-3) by a full game with three games remaining.
The Boilermakers, who hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over UW, play Saturday at Michigan.
UW faces Michigan State on Sunday in East Lansing. The Badgers have lost their last nine games at the Breslin Center.
Ohio State (16-13, 6-10), which suffered a 23-point loss at UW earlier this season, snapped a four–game losing streak.
"We kind of shot ourselves in the foot and have damn near given away the Big Ten title that we were holding on, looking at everyone else fighting for," UW senior Nigel Hayes said. "We controlled our own path and as long as we’d take care of business we’d be fine. Now we haven’t done that and we’re on the outside kind of looking in.
"Now it is on us to take care of our end and hopefully, we can get some help from these other teams."
UW dominated play in the teams’ first meeting en route to an 89-66 victory. The Badgers hit 12 of 22 three-pointers (54.5%), turned 21 offensive rebounds into 28 second-chance points and outscored the Buckeyes, 42-22, in the paint.
Ohio State flipped the script Thursday.
BOX SCORE: Ohio State 83, Wisconsin 73
The Buckeyes shot 50% from three-point range (5 of 10) and 51.6% overall (16 of 31) in the opening half, pounded the ball inside at will for an 18-2 edge in points in the paint and killed UW on the glass, 23-12.
That left UW facing a 44-31 halftime deficit.
"We let them get comfortable early," UW coach Greg Gard said. "That’s something we had talked about as a group, knowing the talent they’ve got. They can do that to you, if you let them get comfortable. And we didn’t follow what we had talked about for two days.
"When you’re locked in all the time those things don’t happen. Obviously, they were quicker to the ball. The numbers told the story in the first half."
Ohio State finished with a 22-18 edge in the paint and won the rebound battle, 38-25. The Buckeyes came in hitting 35.7% from three-point range and made10 of 16 attempts (62.5%) Thursday. They finished at 50% overall (25 of 50).
"I feel like everybody was on the same page tonight," said Ohio State junior forward Jae'Sean Tate, who had a double-double in the first half with 13 points and 10 rebounds. "We played hard. It seemed like we couldn't miss.
"That just comes from preparation...If we play this the rest of the time and in the Big Ten tournament, I feel like we can win it."
Koenig scored 14 points in the first half to help keep UW somewhat close. He finished with 27 points in 31 minutes. Koenig hit 5 of 9 three-pointers and 9 of 15 shots overall but other than D'Mitrik Trice getting hot late and finishing with 14 points got little offensive support.
Hayes finished with seven points and hit 2 of 6 shots. Ethan Happ looked out of sync early and finished with four points. He hit 2 of 5 shots. The Buckeyes used aggressive double-teams early on both players, though Gard downplayed the effect.
"We moved the ball out of it and did some decent things," he said. "Our offense wasn’t got what got us in trouble tonight.
"It was our inability to stop them, specifically in the first half. We had not been that porous defensively, that disconnected or disjointed, in a long time."
Zak Showalter missed all four shots he took, all from three-point range, and was scoreless.
Vitto Brown added nine points, six in the first half.
Sophomore guard C.J. Jackson, averaging 5.5 points in league play, had nine of his college-high 18 points in the opening half to spark the Buckeyes. He hit 4 of 4 three-pointers and 7 of 11 shots overall.
JaQuan Lyle and Marc Loving added 17 and 10 points, respectively, for the Buckeyes. Tate finished with 15 points and 12 rebounds.
The Badgers did little right in the first 20 minutes. They trailed by 10 points less than 10 minutes into the game, trailed by as many as 15 points and pulled within 13 at the break on Koenig’s three-pointer with 5 seconds left.
UW showed life early in the second half, scoring on four consecutive possessions and pulled within nine points on several occasions but Ohio State answered every thrust with a big shot.
"When you let them get going and let them get some easy buckets, the hard buckets become easier," Koenig said. "Obviously, as everyone saw they were hitting everything. Even guys who aren’t the best shooters were hitting shots.
"We’ve just got to take more pride on the defensive end…I’ve got to take it on myself to just be a better leader and make sure everybody understands the importance and just be ready to go."
Hayes concurred.
"Our sense of urgency needs to match or exceed the team that we’re playing against," he said. "We had that versus Maryland…
“We’ve got to find out what we need to do because that clock is ticking. The sand is coming out of the hour glass."