The Ohio State Buckeyes had a less than ideal start to Big Ten conference play, losing to Illinois 75-70 on New Year’s Day and narrowly falling to No. 20 Purdue 76-75 on Thursday night.
Winning at Illinois would not have been an easy task, but it would have been an important step to show the team was ready to make some noise in the conference picture.
JaQuan Lyle’s 26 points were not enough and the Bucks dropped their conference opener.
Thursday night stung a bit more. The Buckeyes led by as many as ten in the second half, but let the lead slip away and lost in the closing seconds to a solid Boilermaker team.
A win at home over Purdue may have made up for Ohio State’s loss earlier in the week, getting the team up to the .500 mark in conference play.
Instead, we’re looking at a Buckeyes team that is 0-2 in the Big Ten and 10-5 overall, after starting the season 7-1 with a relatively easy schedule.
As much as Ohio State has shown some flashes of what it can do when everyone is on their A-game, these last two games tend to follow the narrative that the Bucks may not have the talent to get it done in a competitive conference.
Sunday night at Minnesota will be as close to a must-win game as one can find in January, as it’ll be crucial to stop the skid at two games before Ohio State’s next match on the road against No. 13 Wisconsin.
Minnesota (14-2, 2-1) is nothing to scoff at, but unless Ohio State can come away with a hard-earned victory on the road, the Buckeyes are more than likely going to start Big Ten play 0-4.
Of course the team can’t look at it that way and has to approach every game like it can win, but a win over Wisconsin would be an upset to say the least.
Opening up conference play 1-3 would be bad enough, but a four-game losing streak is the kind of hole that can be even more difficult to dig out of and can start to breed the contagious effects of one loss turning into another and so on and so forth.
After the Wisconsin game on Jan. 12, Ohio State has a stretch of relatively favorable games, playing 11 straight contests against unranked teams.
Teams like Michigan State, Maryland and Iowa will by no means be guaranteed victories, but if the Buckeyes can split these two between Minnesota and Wisconsin, there’s still time to right the ship and build some momentum before the Big Ten Tournament.
At this point, there isn’t much reason to believe an unexpected hero is going to arrive out of Ohio State’s freshman class or bench. The guys who have been in the rotation just have to execute.
They did a decent job of it in the first two months of the season, but 2017 has not gotten off to a great start.
Head Coach Thad Matta is approaching his season one game at a time, but if the Buckeyes don’t end up with a respectable position in the Big Ten by the time the tournament rolls around, it could possibly be his last season in Columbus.
I’m not calling for his job, but it’s not hard to find disgruntled fans and basketball analysts who already have seen enough, or are at least uncertain that he offers the best future for the program.
Right now, I’d fall into the wait-and-see mode in that regard, but if Ohio State fails to make the NCAA Tournament for a second-straight year, those issues are only going to be heightened, come March.
Matta knows that and the team knows where it lies in the Big Ten picture.
Ohio State’s chance to get back on the right track starts Sunday at 7:30 pm in Minnesota and the game will be aired on Big Ten Network.
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