In what is likely a dagger to Ohio State’s tournament hopes, the Buckeyes played maybe their worst game of the season as a bad and undermanned Northwestern team came to Columbus and held Ohio State to a season low scoring output, stunning the host Buckeyes 70-49 snapping a streak that saw Northwestern lose 8 straight previous conference road contests and 3 overall. A 19-2 scoring run by Northwestern to open the second half opened up a tight game and allowed Northwestern to pull away in quite possibly the worst performance of the season by Ohio State with everything on the line. Northwestern has now beaten Ohio State three straight times, two in a row in Columbus for the first time since the 1930’s in what can only be considered a program low night in the last number of years. Ohio State fell to 15-12, 7-9, while Northwestern improved to 14-13, 5-11. Micah Parrish led Ohio State with 16 and Bruce Thornton added 13, while Northwestern got a game high 18 from Nick Martinelli. K.J. Windham and Ty Berry added 15 each and Matthew Nicholson chipped in 10.

The Buckeyes scored on their first possession on a three by Micah Parrish from the right wing as the shot clock was expiring, but offense was hard to come by on both ends as Ohio State held a 5-4 lead at the first media timeout as both teams missed 4 out of their first 6 shot attempts. Ohio State went over 4 ½ minutes without scoring and the Wildcats out scored the Buckeyes 8-0 over that time to grab a 10-5 lead. Bruce Thornton’s baseline runner stopped the run and at the under 12 media timeout, the Wildcats led 10-7 as the Buckeyes had gone 3 of 10 shooting with 6 turnovers in a disastrous start to the game, yet still only trailed by 3.  A pair of Northwestern buckets was offset by a pair by Bruce Thornton, but Ohio State’s turnover woes continued to haunt as the Wildcats scored the next 4 to take an 18-11 lead into the under 8 minute media timeout as the Buckeye turnover count had grown to 9. Out of the timeout, the Wildcats went to the stripe where they buried two to build a 9 point lead, but on the other end, Micah Parrish drilled a three and was fouled putting him on the stripe, where he completed a four point play, burying the free throw to trim the lead back to 5. The ‘Cats answered with a 7-2 run to build a 10 point lead before Thornton lobbed to Sean Stewart for a dunk and with the final media timeout of the first half called, Ohio State trailed Northwestern 27-19.  A short Thornton jumper and an old-fashioned three point play by Parrish sandwiched a Wildcat bucket to cut the lead to 5, but a Northwestern bucket completed the first half scoring as the Wildcats took a 31-24 lead to the locker room in what may have been the worst half of basketball Ohio State had played all season. Ohio State not only shot it poorly at 35.7% and 2 of 11 from three, they turned it over at an alarming rate, 11 in the first 20 minutes. Northwestern shot 43% and just 1 of 6 from three, but due to a heartless first half performance by the Buckeyes, held a 7 point first half lead, leading by as many as 10 in the first 20 minutes. Only 3 Buckeyes cracked the scoring column in the first half, 10 each by Bruce Thornton and Micah Parrish and 4 by Sean Stewart, who combined to shoot 10 of 18 with the rest of the team going 0-10. Northwestern was led by 4 players with 6 each. 

The Wildcats opened the second half on a 7-0 run, 9-0 dating back to the end of the first half, to open up a 14 point lead at the first media timeout. The run went to 14-0 and the deficit to 19 before Ohio State got their first points of the second half just before the 14:30 mark when Devin Royal scored his first points of the night with two free throws. A Northwestern triple ballooned the lead to 20 and Ohio State took a timeout with 13:58 to play. Northwestern scored 6 out of the next 9 with Ohio State’s only bucket coming on a Parrish three and Ohio State looked as if they had quit as Jake Diebler took a timeout with 12:06 to play to a chorus of boos and Northwestern inexplicably leading 52-29. The ‘Cats upped the lead to 58-30 before Ques Glover converted an old-fashioned three point play at the 9 minute mark. After a Wildcat bucket, Glover drilled a three and at the under 8, the sad but true tale had Northwestern cruising, up 60-36. Out of the timeout, Thornton and Parrish scored at the rim forcing Northwestern to take a timeout with 5:40 to play and Ohio State on a 7-0 run, but still trailing 60-40. The Wildcats scored 4 of the next 5 before John Mobley, Jr. scored his first points of the game, hitting a jumper from the right wing and at the under 4, Northwestern was cruising to victory, leading Ohio State 64-43. Four Northwestern free throws and two by Royal and two by Mobley kept the deficit at 21 with just over 2 to play. An Evan Mahaffey score at the rim was followed by two Wildcat free throws to complete the scoring in a devastating home loss. 

What can we say about that game? The flu was going around the team, with Aaron Bradshaw, Colby Baumann and assistant coach Luke Simons missing the game. Were others affected but tried to play through, perhaps, but that was an embarrassing performance as Ohio State has had all year long. With what was on the line, to come out and lay an egg that bad against a really bad basketball team, it was not only surprising, it was inexcusable. For a team that had just played the Big Ten leaders to the wire and came in as a massive favorite sitting just barely on the right side of the bubble, to come out with zero energy against a team far less talented than themselves, is truly a disappointment in every sense of the word. Barring a 4-0 run in the final 4 games, which seems almost impossible, Ohio State will likely miss the NCAA tournament for a third straight year. There is just no excuse for a game like we saw from the Buckeyes on this night. They will head out west for two and every game from here on out has to be considered must wins, but after tonight, it seems like it very well could be a lost season. 

The Buckeyes look to rebound from this tough loss at UCLA on Sunday afternoon. Tip time is scheduled for 3:45 PM on CBS. 

-Jason Harris