Ohio State moved to 8-0 in Big Ten play and 17-4 overall with a 67-49 win over the Minnesota Golden Gophers (14-8, 3-6).
OSU was led in the box score by fourth-year junior forward Keita Bates-Diop with 17 points, but he did it on 7-of-21 shooting, including 0-of-6 from three-point range. Bates-Diop never found his touch, but Ohio State was undaunted because of the play of everyone else around him, particularly front-court partners Jae’Sean Tate and freshman center Kaleb Wesson.
Wesson scored 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting and had great chemistry with Tate in the paint, as evidenced by Tate’s five assists — many of which occurred in the post.
Ohio State shot just 27-for-66 (.409) from the field and 4-for-20 (.200) from three-point range. But their defense held Minnesota in check as well, as the Gophers made just 18-of-47 (.383) attempts from the field.
Somewhat ironically, the Buckeyes got the scoring started on Keita Bates-Diop’s first field goal attempt — a dunk. He would then spend the rest of the game mostly missing his jump-shot attempts.
After a dunk by sophomore center Micah Potter to bring OSU to within one point at 11-10, the Gophers would score the next nine points to take a 10-point lead on the Buckeyes. And that is when Ohio State woke up.
A jumper by Jae’Sean Tate was followed by a three-pointer by C.J. Jackson, which was then followed by a layup from Kaleb Wesson. A basket by Minnesota swingman Amir Coffey stopped OSU’s run, but Jackson recaptured the momentum with another three-pointer to cut the lead to 22-20.
Less than one minute later, Jackson’s third three gave the Buckeyes a 23-22 lead. From that point on, Ohio State remained in control despite not having a good day shooting the ball. Jackson scored 11 points and was 3-of-7 from three-point range.
The Buckeyes built up a 12-point lead in the first half and extended that lead to 21 points in the second half. The bulk of their success can be attributed to defense, especially in the second half when OSU held the Gophers without a made field goal from the 11:39 mark of the second half until a layup by Coffey with 2:06 remaining in the game. The basket cut the Buckeyes’ lead to 16 points, but was much too little, way too late.
Like Keita Bates-Diop, Jae’Sean Tate did not have a great day shooting, hitting just 2-of-9 shots from the field. He scored 10 points, but also added six rebounds to go along with his aforementioned five assists.
With the 17 wins, the Buckeyes have now matched last year’s win total with at least a dozen games yet to play.
Up next for OSU is a Monday night tip against Nebraska at 8:00 pm on BTN from Value City Arena.
Seemed to me both teams were whupped. Their non stopped play schedule had many players gassed….and not making shots.
This is a decent win. OSU took over with 7 minutes in the first half. Should they have shot 50% they would of blown MN back into New Jersey. Our D was stifling. The game could of been closer if MN could of hit from the charity stripe. OSU will no longer sneak up on anyone and teams are now guarding KBD more sharply, however, the bench and others are now stepping up. Overall awesome job for OSU because this game was on ice as OSU opened up a 21 lead midway through the 2nd half and MN could do very little offensively!
They overcame a rocky start and played strong defense to dump Minnesota. KB-D had another off shooting outing and still managed to come away with a double double. In football great defense wins championships. In basketball great defense leads to turnovers and transition points. Even if they’re not of the fast break variety. They followed up a frustrating road win against Northwestern with a pretty solid game. Far from perfect but just as far away from disappointing.
Pretty safe to say that right now the Buckeyes are positioned at the top of the most surprising success stories of this season. Well done Buckeyes.
If we won by this margin but our star, KBD, had 36 points, we would be (rightly) lamenting the balance of the team. But no, he scored just a smidge over 25% of our points, and the contributions from the rest of the team just keep coming. Wesson gets game ball and these last two games must have our upcoming opponents wondering, “who do you focus on when trying to stop the Buckeyes”?
Holtmann has ’em believing.