By Danielle Daniels
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – A tough shooting second half allowed Indiana to build a lead and Ohio State couldn’t complete the comeback, falling 71-65 on Saturday night inside Assembly Hall.
The Buckeyes are now 12-3 on the season and 2-2 in Big Ten play.
Indiana built a 10-point lead with less than four minutes to play. A three-pointer by Jamison Battle and four points from Felix Okpara helped cut the deficit to just two at 67-65 with 1:44 left. But Indiana made enough plays down the stretch to hold on.
Battle led the Buckeyes with 17 points on 5-of-10 from long range. It was his fourth consecutive game with five or more three-pointers. Zed Key added 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting to go along with five rebounds.
Okpara pulled down a career-high 15 rebounds and also tied his career-high with five blocks.
Freshman Scotty Middleton came off the bench and was 4-of-4 shooting to finish with nine points.
Ohio State shot just 36 percent for the game, including 28 percent in the second half. But rebounding kept the Buckeyes in the game. OSU held a 49-27 edge on the glass and a 24-9 advantage in second chance points.
A 12-0 Buckeye run, keyed by a pair of Battle three-pointers and punctuated by a dunk by Key, turned a seven-point deficit into a 20-15 lead at the midway point of the first half. Indiana got six consecutive points from Xavier Johnson to take a brief lead, but a pair of Zed Key free throws with less than a second left gave the Buckeyes a 38-37 edge at the break.
The Buckeyes came out of the locker room and scored the first eight points on an Okpara dunk, a three-point play from Gayle Jr. and a three-pointer from Battle. Indiana answered by scoring 11 of the next 13 points and the game was knotted at 48-48 with 12 minutes to play.
Indiana took advantage of Ohio State’s cold shooting in the second half to go on an 18-8 run over the next eight and a half minutes to build a 10-point lead that the Hoosiers would make stand.
The Buckeyes return home for a midweek tilt with one of the hottest teams in the Big Ten in Wisconsin. Tip-off Wednesday is set for 8:30 p.m.
- Jamison Battle first three-pointer of the game was the 300th of his career.
- Battle finished with five three-pointers, marking his fourth consecutive game with five or more three-pointers made. The last Buckeye to make five or more three-pointers in four consecutive games was Jon Diebler from Nov. 24 to Dec. 5, 2009.
- Felix Okpara pulled-down a career-high 15 rebounds to go along with six points. The last Buckeye with 15 rebounds in a game was E.J. Liddell when he had 15 in a win at Minnesota on Jan. 27, 2022.
- Okpara also tied his career-high with five blocks and extended his consecutive games with a block to 21.
- Zed Key finished with 11 points and knocked-down his second three-pointer of the season.
- The Buckeyes pulled-down 22 offensive rebounds as part of their season-high tying 49 rebounds. The last time Ohio State had 22 offensive rebounds in a game was Nov. 25, 2016, when it had 27 against Marshall. The last time it happened against a Big Ten team was on March 5, 2003, when the Buckeyes had 22 against Northwestern.
COURTESY OSU ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS
