Indiana will look for its second road win of the season tonight when it travels to Columbus to take on Ohio State. The Buckeyes are 10-7 overall and 2-4 in Big Ten play.
Tonight’s game will tip at 8 p.m. ET on FOX:
After back-to-back losses by 25 points and an ugly scene inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Tuesday night, Indiana’s season is teetering towards disaster.
The Hoosiers won five straight games from Dec. 21 through Jan. 8, but that momentum was thwarted by a 25-point loss last Saturday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. A 25-point drubbing by Illinois in Bloomington followed – the Hoosiers trailed by 31 points at one point – prompting fans to boo the team’s performance and chant for the coach to be fired.
Indiana will play four of its next five games on the road, beginning tonight in Columbus against an Ohio State team desperate for a win. The Buckeyes have lost three of their last four and need to protect their home court after dropping their previous two games at Value City Arena against Michigan State and Oregon.
MEET THE BUCKEYES
Despite its seven losses, Ohio State is ranked inside the top 35 of the KenPom ratings. The Buckeyes haven’t had a bad loss and have wins against Texas and Kentucky. But at some point, the volume of losses matters and Jake Diebler needs to start stacking wins to stay on the right side of the NCAA tournament bubble.
Junior point guard Bruce Thornton leads Ohio State. The 6-foot-2 native of Georgia averages a team-high 17.4 points per game on 53.1 percent shooting. Thornton is 26-for-67 (43.3 percent) on 3s and 78-for-93 (83.9 percent) from the free-throw line. He also leads the Buckeyes in assists with 4.4 per game.
With fifth-year senior Meechie Johnson away from the team for personal reasons, freshman guard John Mobley Jr. has stepped into the starting lineup. The 6-foot-1 guard is an excellent 3-point shooter (43 percent) and the team’s third-leading scorer with 11.9 points per game.
Fifth-year wing Micah Parrish, a transfer from San Diego State, starts at the three and averages 10 points in 29.1 minutes per game. Parrish is a 34.3 percent 3-point shooter but has been turnover-prone. The Detroit native has committed a team-high 35 turnovers and is shooting just 48.5 percent on 2s.
Fifth-year senior Ques Glover provides backcourt depth along with freshman Colin White. The 6-foot Glover had 13 points in a double overtime win at Minnesota on Jan. 6 but has gone scoreless in the last two games. White, a 6-foot-6 wing from Ottawa, Ohio, averages two points in 9.2 minutes per game and is 3-for-8 on the season on 3s.
The Buckeyes start sophomore Devin Royal at the four, with Duke transfer Sean Stewart at the five. The 6-foot-6 Royal is enjoying a breakout season, averaging 13.8 points and 7.4 rebounds in 26.8 minutes per game. Royal has struggled on 3s (20.7 percent) but is making 61.1 percent of his 2s and does a good job getting to the line.
The 6-foot-9 Stewart played at Duke last season as a freshman and is an excellent rebounder. He leads the Big Ten in defensive rebounding percentage (31.1 percent) and makes 61.5 percent of his 2s in conference play. At just 220 pounds, Stewart will give up size against IU’s frontcourt.
Junior wing Evan Mahaffey is an efficient finisher off the bench for the Buckeyes. The 6-foot-6 forward shoots 70.6 percent from the field and averages 4.7 points in 20.4 minutes per game.
Sophomore Aaron Bradshaw missed seven games from Nov. 22 through Dec. 17 with an off-the-court issue and has been coming off the bench since his return. The 7-foot-1, 215-pound center was a five-star prospect out of high school but was underwhelming last season at Kentucky and transferred to Ohio State. Bradshaw is shooting 61.5 percent on 2s but also likes to step out to the perimeter. He’s just 4-for-21 from distance.
The Buckeyes could also use freshman Ivan Njegovan or Austin Parks for frontcourt minutes. Njegovan, a Croatian native, is 7-foot-1 and 250 pounds, while Parks, a sophomore, is 6-foot-10 and 260 pounds.
TEMPO-FREE PREVIEW
For the season, the Buckeyes are shooting 37.1 percent on 3s, good for 42nd in the country and are turning the ball over on just 15.8 percent of their possessions, which ranks inside the top 75 nationally. However, those numbers have deteriorated in conference games. Ohio State is making just 28.9 percent of its triples in six Big Ten games and has a turnover percentage of 19.6, last in the conference.
Ohio State has struggled to keep opponents off the foul line. Their opponent free-throw rate (FTA/FGA) for the season is 39.7 percent, which ranks 305th in the country. In Big Ten games, Ohio State’s opponent free-throw rate is 38.7 percent, which is 15th in the conference.
Against Big Ten opponents, Ohio State has the third-worst offense in the conference, with 1.001 points per possession. In its four conference losses, Ohio State scored .792 points per possession against Maryland, .898 points per possession against Michigan State, .99 points per possession against Oregon and 1.004 points per possession against Wisconsin. In its last two games, Indiana gave up 1.183 points per possession to Iowa and 1.23 points per possession to Illinois.
WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO
The KenPom projection is Ohio State by seven with a 25 percent chance of an IU victory. Bart Torvik’s projection is Ohio State by five with a 30 percent chance the Hoosiers prevail.
Four of Indiana’s next five games are on the road and Pomeroy doesn’t project the Hoosiers to win another game until Feb. 14 against UCLA. For the Hoosiers to have a chance in Columbus, the intensity, effort and attention to detail must take a significant step forward from the last two games.
As critical as tonight’s game is for Indiana, it’s just as important for the Buckeyes. Ohio State desperately needs a win before a road trip to Purdue next Tuesday. While the computer rankings like Ohio State, continuing to lose home games is no recipe for making the NCAA tournament.
(Photo credit: Ohio State Athletics)
Filed to: Ohio State Buckeyes
