To take away: the Ohio State makes too many mistakes to achieve victory at N ° 18 Illinois

Champaign, ill.

From a technical point of view, Underwood calls it shots “background vision competition”. In short, with an Illini defender on your hip after having circumvented a ball screen, the players are in a hurry to take two flashes, often floats, with his main players in office near the edge to offer additional coverage.

It was not a news from Ohio State when he went to Illinois No. 18 on Sunday afternoon. By winning their last three games to go back to 0,500 in game Big Ten, the Buckeyes brought a feeling of full -time confidence anchored by the belief that they had turned a corner by playing smarter and more connected basketball.

This made the end of a defeat of 87-79 at the State Farm Center all the more exasperating for coach Jake Diebler and his players, who led 68-63 with 7:43 to play but were dominated 24- 11 From there like the Illini battles (15-7, 7-5 Big Ten) won when leaving.

The Ohio State (13-9, 5-6) missed 13 of its last 16 shots while allowing the Illinois to strike six of its last eight shots and 18 for 28 (64.3%) from the ground to Course of the second half.

“Especially on the road against a classified team, you must make sure that you are running on both sides of the ball,” Junior goalkeeper Bruce Thornton told Dispatch. “Many communication problems, easy scores and us taking both and not execute the offensive. You can’t win games like that.

This is not the formula that the Buckeyes had followed by winning the No. 11 Purdue, at home against Iowa and Penn State leading to this match. After eliminating a series of three defeats per total of five points, Ohio State had preached responsibility, connectivity and the best overall game while entering in February as an increase in the Big Ten ranking.

Sunday afternoon, they diverted from this script. The Illinois had a lot to do with that, but Thornton’s atmosphere and the second year Royal Devin attacker was more anger than the disappointment of the loss – anger because that, they felt, was a winning game S ‘He played as they were.

“I just have the impression that our energy was extinguished,” said Royal, who paid a summit of 29 points. “In the second half, we were not as connected as we had to be, as we were before. I don’t know if it was at the start of the game, people were tired, but it was a bit offbeat, our energy and our aggressiveness in the second period for sure. »»

Adding Thornton: “You know, when you get away from a good opponent, the races occur. You just have to stop. The quality of the photos they obtained were lay-ups, and it’s difficult. Part of this is a communication error, a game was that we just have to play better head-on in defense. Some judgments would have helped us on the offensive side, but we did not have enough stops today. »»

Ohio State pulled a season of 32.0% (16 for 50) from two points. Defensively, it allowed the Illinois to draw a branch of 68.4% (26 for 38) from the two -point beach, the worst brand authorized by the Buckeyes all year round.

“The communication errors that led to layups have finally cost us,” said Diebler. “You are not going to keep the teams aimless, but when we executed our defensive coverage, we have done very good things. They made us pay with Layups a few times when we broke down and, finally, it injured us. »»

And offensively, the buckeyes played in Underwood’s plans taking two -time disputed and unbalanced while the Illinois sculpts them on the other side.

“They are good,” said Diebler about Illinois. “They proved it throughout the year. I think we are good. I have the impression that we have played very well for many of this game. We have to continue playing a little more intelligently, and we have done it lately. Today, we were not so good in this area. »»

Here are four other dishes to remember from the loss.

Ohio State Buckeyes: Join the Ohio State Sports Insider text group with Bill Rabinowitz, Joey Kaufman Adam Jardy

The absence of Sean Stewart was felt

While the Illinois benefited from the return of the Tomislav Ivisic Ivisic second year center from an absence of three games while fighting mononucleosis, Ohio State played without the attacker / second year Stewart center due to a disease.

After being transferred from Duke, Stewart was mainly a rebounder and an occasional dunker for Ohio State while fighting large problems and playing frequently as an undersized center. The Stewart of 6-9, 200 pounds has an average of 6.1 points and 6.0 rebounds while playing 18.0 minutes per game, but he watched from the bench after being listed as questionable in the availability report of ‘avant-match.

Without him in the match, the first year striker MOREZ Johnson Jr. had a match to remember. The 6-9 striker, 255 pounds scored 14 points on 6 shots out of 8 and, more impressive, dropped a career in a career of 15 rebounds. Seven of them came on offensive glass, where he often made a gesture so that his teammates simply throw a shot and let him go.

Johnson has teamed up with Ivisic, who had 12 points and 10 rebounds, to feed the country’s most redesigned team with an advantage of 43-31 on glass.

“Their versatility being able to play big, they played significant stretching where they played smaller,” said Diebler. “We missed one of our guys who would have allowed us to play a little more, but these two big guys had an impact. Morez Johnson’s offensive rebound has really had an impact. The rebound alone was different from what they had shown in previous games. »»

Stewart participated in most of the Ohio State heats, but did not run on the field with the team after the last pre-match group in the locker room, coming out for a moment later and remaining on the bench .

“We absolutely missed Sean on the glass,” said Diebler. “We had the impression that if they could play big, Sean is the guy we needed to be able to do this. He really tried to come back. He fought against a disease. We needed a little more time for him.

Devin Royal was impressive

The second year striker sank a 3-point with about a minute to play in the first half to put Ohio State ahead of 40-36, and when Ivan Njegovan made a failure in Thornton in the next possession, the Buckeyes had An advance of 42-36 at halftime.

Royal went to the locker room with 19 points on 8 shots out of 12. He also had 3 for 5 of Deep, already the most 3 points in his career after having drawn 19.2% (10 for 52) during his 53 First games. He finished with 29 but only obtained six shots in the second period, although he pulled three faults and struck the six of his attempts at free throws.

“They didn’t really defend me differently,” he said. “I just didn’t have the ball in my hand as much. I did not have the impression that they defended me differently at all. They let me go to my places. I just have to take my photos.

This is the second time that Royal has made several 3 points in a match. The other time was in the opening victory of the season against N ° 19 of Texas in Las Vegas on November 4, when he had 2 for 4.

“I was just playing my game, overthrowing my photos they gave me,” he said about his shooting. “Hold on my follow -up on my jump shot helped a lot. I realized that I had to start doing this. Just have confidence. That’s really all I can say.

Ohio State support distribution was a non-presentation

Stewart was not physically on the ground, but his production was not too far from most of the Ohio State list. Aside from the three big Buckeyes of Thornton, Royal and Mobley, the other Ohio State players to see the combined action for 10 points and 14 rebounds.

After a series of four consecutive outings of two -digit scores where he has an average of 17.8 points per game, Micah Parrish only collected 4 points on a 1 in 5 shot with four faults in 30 minutes.

“Micah was really consistent for us,” said Diebler. “His bad problem touched him. I felt like it was not quite the same. We probably have to find a way to make him the ball more. »»

The replacement of Stewart in the starting range, 7-1, 215 pounds at the Aaron Bradshaw center, had the same number of points as the rebounds: two. Ivan Njegovan, first-year Croatian center 7-1 and 250 pounds from Ohio State, raised 2 points and a rebound in 14 minutes.

Apart from that, Ques Glover collected 2 points on a 1 out of 5 shot and committed a fault in 16 minutes while Evan Mahaffey (11 minutes) and Colin White (two minutes) were both aimed.

Ohio State Buckeyes: The dishes to remember: John Mobley’s versatile game leads the Ohio State after Penn State

Bruce Thornton, John Mobley prolific but ineffective

The Ohio State main rear area finished with 40 points in total, but needed 39 shots to get there. Thornton collected 22 points on the shooting of 7 out of 18, ending with five assists and no turnover, while Mobley collected 18 points on 6 shots out of 21 with a passte, a flight and a turnover.

Inside the 3 -point line, they were combined 5 for 24. Thornton missed its last five shots on the ground after its 3 pointer at 3 which put the buckeyes in front of five with about eight minutes to play. In the second period, they were combined 8 for 27 of the ground and 3 for 16 out of two.

“Bruce put us a couple early, and it’s difficult to do,” said Underwood. “It’s tiring, it’s difficult. When you are wired to score like these two guys, they will take photos. They will do it, but I thought we did a much better job to simply win the battle of the ball screen by remaining relentless and forcing them to fall into painting for two. »»

ajardy@dispatch.com

@Adamjardy

Get more Ohio State basketball news by listening to our podcasts

This article originally appeared on the Dispatch of Columbus: Basketball of Ohio State ‘cannot win like that’ against Illinois