Buckeyes Roundball Roundup: Splitting a pair with the state of Virginia

Following one of the worst weeks of basketball in the Thad Matta era at Ohio State, the Buckeyes improved this past week, even if it only turned into one win.

Ohio State loses close one to No. 10 Virginia in Big Ten-ACC Challenge, 64-58

While the Virginia Cavaliers are a veteran team with a deep bench, the Buckeyes are a young team that is still trying to find their identity. That showed Tuesday night. Although the scarlet and gray played well, at least for the most part, they just couldn’t get over the hump against one of the best teams in the ACC.

Without their starting point guard London Perrantes (appendectomy), the Cavaliers’ depth showed. The Buckeyes, on the other hand, proved that they are not have such a deep team. Outside of the three players who scored in double-digits — Marc Loving (19 points, five rebounds, two assists), Keita Bates-Diop (15 points), Jae’Sean Tate (12 points, eight rebounds, two assists, one steal) — the rest of the Ohio State players scored just 12 points, including just seven bench points.

The loss is Ohio State’s fourth in a row, but head coach Thad Matta saw improvements in his team.

“The biggest thing for us is that we’re making some strides in the right direction,” Matta said. “I think that the guys did a really good job of understanding what we were trying to do. They had some incredible shots. I thought we played with more intensity and more intelligence.”

“I think it is a little bit of both [effort and execution],” Matta went on. “I thought that we competed more tonight. We had more of a purpose to what we were trying to get accomplished in terms of what Virginia was trying to do and in terms of what we were trying to take away. I think we’re still making small mistakes though and those are things we have to get corrected. Those small things are making huge difference.”

Forward Jae’Sean Tate also sees the progress that the team has shown.

“I definitely think we’ve gotten better every week,” Tate said. “It just seems that all of our games come down to the wire. We’ve got to figure out ways to bring it home. We’re so close. That just comes with being tougher and taking care of the ball.”

Buckeyes snap four-game skid, dominate VMI, 98-62

Ohio State made the most of Thad Matta’s 400th game as the Buckeyes’ head coach on Saturday afternoon, winning their fourth-ever meeting (all in Matta’s tenure) against the Virginia Military Institute. The first 10 minutes of the game were close, but the scarlet and gray took it to VMI down the stretch. Trailing 23-22 midway through the first half, Ohio State demolished the Keydets in the final 30 minutes to win the game decisively.

The Buckeyes dominated on the scoreboard and in the paint. They held significant advantages in both points in the paint (40-14) and on the boards (48-27). Part of the reason why they dominated in rebounding was due to VMI not having a player taller than 6-foot-6. Ohio State entered the game averaging 15.7 turnovers per game (at least 13 in every game). They had a season-low nine turnovers against VMI.

Four starters had double-digit scoring days, led by Jae’Sean Tate (19 points, five rebounds, two steals), Marc Loving (17 points, 10 rebounds, one block), and Keita Bates-Diop (12 points, four rebounds, two assists, two blocks). Point guard JaQuan Lyle was the only starter not to score in double-digits, but the freshman filled up the stat sheet to the tune of eight points, six rebounds, seven assists, and one steal.

Starting in place of Daniel Giddens (flu), Virginia Tech transfer Trevor Thompson had his best game as a Buckeye, finishing with 13 points and 10 rebounds (both season highs and his first double-double of his career). Thompson shouted out his teammates following his best day in scarlet and gray.

“I credit it all to my teammates,” the 6-11 sophomore said. “My teammates gave me real good looks and I just went up and finished it.”

He also said that the snapping the four-game skid brought some relief to the locker room.

“It’s definitely a sense of relief. We’re a young team but we’re still hungry and I feel like this game we grew a lot…we just followed with execution throughout practice and it carried over to the game,” Thompson said.

Winning just one of the last five games reaffirmed to Matta how hard it is to win in Division I.

“It’s becoming more and more obvious every day how hard it is to win in college basketball,” said Matta. “I told the team that we should celebrate this win. We have another tough one on Tuesday night.”

Coming up this week:

Tuesday vs. Air Force (6-2), 8:00 p.m. ET

Saturday at Connecticut (5-2), 12:00 p.m. ET