Buckeyes Fall at Michigan, Drop in the Polls

The Ohio State Buckeyes, just six days removed from an atrocious offensive performance against the Michigan State Spartans, fell flat again in a 56-51 loss to the No. 19 Michigan Wolverines Saturday night.

The Buckeyes continued to struggle shooting the ball, going 19-49 from the field (38%) in a game that Michigan led throughout. It appears as though the Buckeyes go as far as William Buford can take them, and the only senior on the team had a brutal night, scoring just six points on 3-12 shooting. His performance basically nullified an outstanding outing from Deshaun Thomas, who scored 25 points and grabbed 13 rebounds for the first double-double of his career.

Ohio State coach Thad Matta’s talked about Buford’s inconsistency on offense and what they expect from him, "We're trying as much as we can to get him to be consistent. We don't need him to play great, but well."

It was a sloppy first half. Sullinger started the game off with a missed shot down low, then the Buckeyes turned it over on their next three possessions. Meanwhile, Michigan had connected on three of their first four shots and raced out to a 6-0 lead. Ohio State slowly began to grind away, tightening on defense and forcing 10 misses from 13 Michigan shots after their hot start. The Buckeyes went on an 8-2 run that cut the lead to one, but Michigan answered back with six unanswered and led it 23-16 with two minutes remaining. Both teams stumbled into the locker room with Michigan holding a five point lead.

The second half played out much like the first. Despite the Wolverines digging themselves a hole with early foul trouble, the Buckeyes couldn’t capitalize as the deficit grew to double digits. Deshaun Thomas started lighting it up for Ohio State and scored the first 10 points of the half for the Buckeyes (and 18 of Ohio State’s first 30 points overall). After continued inefficiency on the perimeter, the Buckeyes seemed to force-feed Sullinger on the post and the Buckeyes began to chip into Michigan’s lead. With just under nine minutes to play, Sullinger connected on his third straight low-post bucket to shrink the deficit to four.

The two teams went back and forth over the next five minutes, but two clutch step-back jumpers from Zack Novak and Stu Douglass gave Michigan the boost it needed to outlast the Buckeyes.

Saturday’s loss to Michigan was the fifth of the season for Ohio State and created a two-way tie for second place in the Big Ten between the Buckeyes and the Wolverines -- who are a half a game behind league leading Michigan State. The loss also dropped Ohio State in the AP and Coaches polls. The Buckeyes come in at No. 8 in the AP poll and No. 9 in the Coaches poll, and at this point in the season a “1 seed” in the NCAA tournament seems out of reach for Ohio State.

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