Another big run by Ohio State, cold Rutgers offense dooms Scarlet Knights
Rutgers is in a slump.
The No. 15-ranked Scarlet Knights were blown out on their home floor, 79-68, by Ohio State on Saturday afternoon, for their third loss in a row and fourth in their last five games.
"They were real physical in the first half with us and I thought that hurt us. But they're well coached I thought they made some really difficult shots too," Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell said. "So tip of the hat to them. I thought we kept grinding, even at the end. The last 11-12 minutes I thought that was Rutgers basketball. And, unfortunately, you have to play 40 minutes in this league and we'll get ourselves to that point."
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Rutgers (7-4, 3-4 Big Ten) and Ohio State (9-3, 3-3) each started hot as the Buckeyes were 7-of-10 and the Scarlet Knights were 5-of-10 and they each converted 11 of their first 20 shot attempts.
However, Rutgers went to another lull, getting outscored 24-7 to end the first half after it went on a 10-0 run to take a 23-18 lead -- its first and only time ahead. Myles Johnson, after picking up his second foul with 6:19 to go in the opening half, went to the bench and that’s just about when the Buckeyes started their burst. Ohio State jumped ahead once Johnson got in foul trouble in the first game against Rutgers right before Christmas.
"I just thought they were really physical. They went on a stretch where they really made shots. They posted us up. We didn't do a great job of digging down," Pikiell said. "Every team goes on a run during the course of of game. But they had a really good run there and we used a few timeouts there to try to break it, but they were feeling pretty good."
There was a lot of standing around and no offensive flow that led to the troubles for the Scarlet Knights. Rutgers continued to miss layups around the rim.
"We got to finish some of those plays and make our lives a little bit easier around the rim. I think sometimes we're trying to get a foul called instead of finishing the play. There's a difference when you go the basket - you can't go the basket hoping there's a foul called. You got to go to the basket to make to make the shot," Pikiell said.
Ohio State led by as many as 22 points, but Rutgers went on a 14-2 run to cut it down to 67-57 with 3:50 to go. Both the defense and offense picked up. Paul Mulcahy, Jacob Young, Caleb McConnell, and Myles Johnson each got in on the action.
Rutgers then was able to whittle its defeat down to eight at 74-66, but Young missed a foul shot and the Buckeyes were able to close the game from the free throw line.
"I thought we kept grinding, even at the end. The last 11-12 minutes, I thought that was Rutgers basketball," Pikiell said. "And, unfortunately, you have to play 40 minutes in this league and we'll get ourselves to that point."
Young finished with a team-high 19 points while McConnell finished with 12 and Ron Harper Jr. had 11. Rutgers shot 44.6 percent from the field, but only 5-of-19 from 3-point land (26.3%).
On the other side, Ohio State made 51% of their attempts including 42% from behind the arc. Rutgers put 17 more shots up, but couldn’t get enough to fall.
From the free-throw line, Rutgers went 5-of-10 while Ohio State got there a lot more and made them, going 19-of-28.
Coming into the game, the key was battling on the backboards, but Ohio State out-rebounded the Scarlet Knights by a wide margin, again, 43-29. It is the fifth-straight game the opposing team has grabbed more boards.
"We got to continue to do a better job on the back boards. It was a problem tonight. They do a great job of rebounding and the free-throw line is always a factor in these games and you can't give up points like that at the free throw line," Pikiell said.
Rutgers, because a postponement on Tuesday, will now next play No. 8 Wisconsin on Friday night at 7:00 p.m.at the RAC on FS1. It will try to right the ship against a Badger team that Rutgers has had some success against in the past.
"We're playing good teams. Got to get 100% healthy, but the guys keep working. That's what we do, get better. We improve. Six days to work on Wisconsin and we're right in the league, where you need to be. I don't know if any team besides Michigan is undefeated in this conference," Pikiell said. "We got to get them up and ready and we showed some good signs and doing some different things today when we got down. We're starting to feel our rotation out a little bit. We'll come back to work. We'll get better we got played 40 minutes. Tough stretch playing really good basketball teams. Most of them are ranked they're all ranked. These guys have good players and they're tough kids.
"Again, we have a few days off now to get prepared for a really good Wisconsin team. guys grinded down the stretch and was proud of them for that."
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.
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