A troubling pattern is emerging for the Ohio State basketball team. Once again, it went on the road and struggled early with ball security, defense, and toughness. The team has been far different at home than away from it, and it happened again during the first half of the contest at Iowa.
The Hawkeyes came out with hot shooting, and more emotion than the Buckeyes and raced out to a double-digit lead. The margin got as wide as eighteen points. If there’s good news though, Ohio State started to play better and got the deficit down to eight points just before halftime, before giving up a three to go into the locker room down by eleven at 46-35.
E.J. Liddell has kept Ohio State in the game, having his best half of basketball in a Buckeye uniform. He leads the team with eleven points on 5 of 7 shooting, and also has three rebounds. The next highest scorer for Ohio State is Kyle Young with six points. Kaleb Wesson has just four points — making just 2 of his 7 shots.
Offense wasn’t a problem for Iowa. The Hawkeyes shot 62.1 percent from the field, led by Luka Garza’s 17 points. He’s been a beast underneath and nearly unstoppable. The 6-11, 260 lb. big man has made 7 of 9 shots, 2 of 4 from beyond the arc.
Now Ohio State has the daunting task of trying to reel in a very good Iowa team after expending so much energy just getting back in the game. We’ll see if it’s up to the task in the next twenty minutes.
