BAYAMON, Puerto Rico – Jake Diebler’s teachable moment was interrupted by an eruption from his team’s bench.
At the end of the third quarter of the Ohio State men's basketball team's second exhibition game
in Puerto Rico, Diebler was less than pleased with freshman center Vuk Lazarevic. It was OSU's final defensive possession of the quarter, and with just seconds left, Corey McKeithan’s running floater found the bottom of the net for Los Boris 2. The Buckeyes coach clearly wanted Lazarevic to have put up more of a defensive challenge.
His lesson was cut short when freshman LJ Smith fired up a successful shot from the “V” in the Vaqueros de Bayamon logo. The Buckeyes lept from their bench, Diebler’s words were drowned out and Ohio State headed to its huddle with an 82-57 lead.
Ten minutes later, the Buckeyes finished off their trip with a 111-73 win at Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez that was more physical and emotionally contested but roughly as lopsided as their 115-75 win against Los Boris 1 the day prior.
“This was what we needed,” coach Jake Diebler said. “We had to respond to getting hit, and I thought we had a great response. When you have a chance to experience something like that in August, it’s huge.”
As in their August 2 game, the Buckeyes never trailed. But unlike that game, this one was closer. With a completely different starting lineup of Justin Pippen, LJ Smith, Jimmie Williams, Amare Bynum and Ivan Njegovan, Ohio State traded empty possessions to open the game, finally getting on the board with a Williams layup after a Pippen steal. From there, the Buckeyes got a Bynum bucket on a breakaway and a Josh Ojianwuna tip-in of a Bynum miss. Then there was a rapid passing sequence in which the ball went from Andrija Jelavic to John Mobley to Anthony Thompson, ending with a dunk from Thompson.
That made it 8-0, but Los Boris 2 responded with an 8-0 run of its own that was broken by a Mobley 3-pointer. That shot snapped a streak of five straight Ohio State misses. It was the first of three times during the first quarter that the home team pulled even with Ohio State, but each time the Buckeyes had an answer.
Tied at 13, Alex Smith stripped Carlos Emory, leading to a Curtis Givens III tip-in of a Williams 3-point miss. Tied at 15, Smith buried a 3-pointer to give Ohio State an 18-15 lead with about two minutes left in the second quarter. OSU would never relinquish its advantage from there.
At the half, Ohio State held a 47-40 lead despite going 5 for 19 (26.3%) from 3-point range through 20 minutes. The day before, the Buckeyes went 21 for 43 (48.8%) from deep while building and maintaining a comfortable lead.
That would arrive after halftime. With their lead at 53-48, the Buckeyes got a 3-pointer from Williams that started a 16-0 run, allowing OSU to score 29 of the third quarter's last 35 points, capped by the Smith shot from beyond midcourt. At one point, Thompson hit a 3-pointer, and Ohio State scored on 11 of 12 possessions. The only missed opportunity came when Bynum turned the ball over on a spin move in the paint.
Ohio State outscored its opponent 64-33 in the final 20 minutes.
“It’s been a good experience,” Pippen said. “Everyone got to play a good amount. We all played a lot of minutes this trip.”
Until the Buckeyes pulled away, the white-clad home team brought an element of physicality and general nastiness that caused some issues for the visitors. Mobley in particular had an exchange with Jared Ruiz that got chirpy for a moment as the Buckeyes started to pull away.
Mobley led six Ohio State players in double figures with 17 points. Bynum had 16 points and five assists, Pippen had 14 points and five assists, Thompson scored 13 points, Njegovan pulled down 13 rebounds and both Williams and L.J. Smith had 10 points, including his 3-pointer just before the buzzer.
“When it was straight, I knew it was going in,” Smith said.
Ohio State will finish its trip with some team bonding. They will take a catamaran tour August 4 before returning to Ohio. The Buckeyes will be off until August 23, when they will return to begin the fall semester.
Ohio State men's basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social or on Twitter at @AdamJardy.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State rides second-half outburst to another win in Puerto Rico
