Ouch. This one was a game Ohio State just had to have. There’s been a lot of those recently, but the Buckeyes were likely just off the bubble heading into the game, and the last thing you want to do is experience a bad loss at home to head back that way.
Illinois is much better than anyone will give it credit for, but in the end the numbers won’t lie. The Illini will probably finish under .500 in both the league and overall, and that’s not going to look good to anyone, much less the NCAA Tournament Committee.
There were way too many turnovers, way to many missed opportunities, and in the end, not enough positives. Here’s three things we learned.
Illinois takes you out of your game
The Illini are so tough to play against. They speed the game up, make you make rash decisions, and subsequently force a slew of turnovers that lead to easy baskets. Not only that, but they have guards and wing players that will just take straight dribble drives to the basket at break-neck speed and catch defenses off guard.
It’s the Brad Underwood way, and this Illini team is starting to figure it out. I’m sure there’s been many teams that win against Illinois and feel like they played a pretty sloppy game. You have to win ugly against this team and there’s no other way around it.
Instead, Ohio State lost ugly.
Next … Put out an A.P.B.
Where has Keyshawn Woods gone?
When Chris Holtmann sold Ohio State to Keyshawn Woods as a graduate transfer, the thought was that he’d stabilize the guard position and provide a sense of calm and composure on the floor. He was also looked at to put the ball in the basket a little bit.
That happened early in the season, but he seems to be suffering from a nosedive in confidence. Woods scored 18 points against the Illini the first time around, but managed just three points tonight. More than that, he’s disappeared for large stretches of games here of recent.
It’d be nice to get him going again.
Next … A bad loss
This could be a big, big loss for down the stretch
Ohio State isn’t exactly a lock to make the NCAA Tournament. There’s a tough schedule coming down the stretch and this was simply a game that needed to go in the win column to try and work towards a .500 record in Big Ten play.
With the rather brutal stretch coming up, it’s going to be extremely tough to finish with a winning record in the Big Ten, and Ohio State might look at this game as the one that kept it out of the Big Dance. Now, the bubble this year has a low, low bar, but still, you don’t want to be back in that territory when conference championships start to wreak havoc.
This will go down as a bad loss, and there’s no doubt about that.
