After beating three sub-200 KenPom teams to open the season, the Ohio State men’s basketball team faced its first legitimate challenge of the season on Sunday afternoon, welcoming the. Notre Dame Fighting Irish to the Schottenstein Center. Like Ohio State, Notre Dame has also missed the NCAA Tournament each of the last three seasons. Also like Ohio State, Notre Dame brought back two of its three leading scorers from last season in Markus Burton and Braeden Shrewsberry, and because of that, feel that this
season will be better than last.
Holding Appalachian State to sub-40% shooting overall and to .89 points per possession on Tuesday night brought some optimism that Ohio State’s defense was making progress, but then Notre Dame came out on Sunday afternoon and started 10-of-16 (62.5%) from the floor, and jumping out to a 21-10 lead halfway through the first half.
It wasn’t Burton and Shrewsberry that were doing the damage, either — Ohio State held that duo to seven points on 2-of-6 shooting in the first half. The Buckeyes executed the plan of limiting the Fighting Irish’s main scorers, but were getting beat by the supporting cast of Jalen Haralson (10 points, 4-of-6 shooting), Garrett Sundra (5 points, 2-of-2 shooting), and Sir Mohammed (4 points, 2-of-4 shooting) — most of whom were getting to the basket and scoring with very little resistance.
The Fighting Irish turned a strong first half into a 34-31 lead at the halftime break, even without its two leading scorers contributing much at all. They bullied Ohio State in the paint, outscoring the home team 24-8 in the paint over the first 20 minutes, which calculates to 1.03 points per possession.
Ohio State was putting a lot of effort into stopping Burton and Shrewsberry, and successfully did so in the first half. But did it come at the expense of leaving driving lanes to the basket for everyone else?
Notre Dame kept attacking the basket, setting screens to get Burton and the other ND guards downhill towards the basket, but Bruce Thornton put a foot in the ground and scored eight straight points for the Buckeyes over a 92-second stretch starting at the 16:28 mark of the second half, keeping the game from getting away from Ohio State. By the under-12 media timeout, Ohio State had cut Notre Dame’s lead to 46-44.
It wasn’t the prettiest, and sometimes the offense looked like last year’s “Get Bruce the ball and get out of the way” strategy, but Ohio State took its first lead in over 25 minutes with a pair of Tilly free throws to make it 48-46 Buckeyes with 10:13 remaining in the game.
Notre Dame exposed Ohio State’s occasional over-reliance on Thornton early in the season, despite a roster turnover that was meant to take some of the load off of his shoulders. However, after Thornton’s eight straight points, Ohio State’s next 11 points didn’t involve Thornton at all — in fact, it was mostly the duo of Tilly and freshman forward A’mare Bynum, who gave Ohio State a 53-51 lead with just over eight minutes remaining in the game.
The Buckeyes did not play a perfect game Sunday — far from it — and came up empty one too many times during the final few minutes of the game, allowing Notre Dame to regroup and take the lead back in the final two minutes, ultimately winning in Columbus, 64-63. Burton and Shrewsberry were good but not great — it was really Notre Dame’s dominance in the painted area that won them the game, something Ohio State will need to focus on as the season progresses.
Thornton was fantastic, scoring 24 points on 8-of-15 shooting while also chipping in four rebounds and one assist. However, Royal and Mobley weren’t the best versions of themselves, and for the Buckeyes to reach their ceiling this season, those three guys all need to play well. Fortunately, they were able to defend home court without playing their best on Sunday afternoon.
