In the midst of the team’s first two-game losing streak of the season, Sunday’s game presented the chance for the Buckeyes to right the ship and collect another top-10 win.
But the prolific scoring of senior center Luka Garza and first-half struggles emphatically increased the Buckeyes’ slide to three games. No. 4 Ohio State (18-7, 12-7) dropped its penultimate regular season game 73-57 to No. 9 Iowa (18-7, 12-6).
Head coach Chris Holtmann said his team did not display the energy he was accustomed to seeing.
“We clearly did not have the emotional juice that we’ve typically had,” Holtmann said. “I’ll be honest with you, I did not recognize that yesterday. I thought we might, but we clearly didn’t, and I’ve got to do a better job trying to find ways in which our guys — we’ve got to get there.”
Trailing 42-28 at halftime, the Buckeyes quickly thawed out of their ice-cold shooting slump and went on a 14-2 run to open the final 20 minutes.
Helping to lead the charge was redshirt junior forward Justice Sueing who knocked down a pair of corner threes to force the Hawkeyes into a timeout just over two minutes into the second half.
The deficit would be cut to as few as 2 points, but the Buckeyes could not maintain their energy and complete the comeback.
Holding Garza to 16 points in their first meeting with the Hawkeyes, the Buckeyes had no answer for the nation’s No. 3 scorer early in Sunday’s game.
Garza, who averaged 24.3 points per game entering the game, tallied 9 points in under six minutes of play and nearly eclipsed his previous scoring output in the first half.
He finished the game with 24 points on 10-of-16 shooting to go along with 11 rebounds.
“We weren’t able to take away some of his strengths when we were playing him one-on-one,” Holtmann said. “I didn’t think we had enough detail and some of that is we’ve got some young guys playing him, but that’s my fault. We’ve obviously got to guard him better. They had a good attack with some of our double teams and they made shots.”
Along with Garza’s 15 first-half points, the Hawkeyes got a lift from junior forward Joe Wieskamp, who delivered on three triples in the first half. Wieskamp finished the game with 19 points on 7-of-13 shooting.
While Garza and Wieskamp built an early rhythm, the Ohio State offense struggled out of the gates. The Buckeyes went on a nearly five-minute stretch without a made field goal that contributed to just 11 points in the opening 11 minutes of the game.
Adding to the struggles, it took the usually efficient Buckeyes seven attempts and nearly 14 minutes to deliver on their first 3-point shot of the game. The Buckeyes finished the game shooting 5-of-17 from deep.
The Buckeyes finished the half shooting 38.7 percent from the field and tallying just 28 points to trail by 14.
“I didn’t think the ball moved very well today,” Holtmann said. “We’ve got to take a look at it, the ball’s got to move, we’ve got to take a higher quality of shot than what we took here today and we were really, really sloppy with the ball — as sloppy as we’ve been all year.”
A lone bright spot on the offensive end for the Buckeyes was sophomore forward E.J. Liddell. The Illinois native tallied 13 points in the first half and was the lone Buckeye to shoot better than 40 percent from the floor going into the break.
Averaging more than 20 points per game over his last four outings, Liddell finished the game with 15 points and three rebounds.
Representative of the team’s offensive struggles, junior guard Duane Washington Jr. — who entered the game averaging 19 points per game on 51.9-percent shooting over his last six games — needed more than 16 minutes to record a bucket Sunday.
Washington finished the game with 7 points on 3-of-10 shooting.
The Buckeyes return to the floor to cap off the regular season Saturday with a home bout against No. 5 Illinois.
“We could use the rest,” Holtmann said. “We need it, but again, give Iowa credit, I thought they were better than us today.”
This story was updated Sunday at 6:50 p.m. with quotes from Chris Holtmann.
Photos by Mackenzie Shanklin
