Ohio State knocks Hawkeyes, 89-85, in Top-10 Iowa City Showdown

Chris Holtmann’s team came in on Thursday winning six of the past seven games, including three wins against teams that were in the top-15 when the games were tipped, and it has just secured its best win yet.

The seventh-seeded Buckeyes waltzed to Iowa City, Iowa, for a top-10 matchup with the No. 8 Hawkeyes and won 89-85 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. They improved to 15-4 overall and 9-4 within the Big Ten.

The game was tied at 75-75 with 5:23 left, and from there Ohio State went on a 13-6 run, fueled by three Justin Ahrens 3-pointers after missing his first four of the evening. The last Ahrens triple put the Buckeyes at 88-81 with 2:39 over. More than two scoreless minutes from Ohio State allowed Iowa to close the gap to 88-85 with 37 seconds to go.

Four Buckeyes – EJ Liddell (16 points), Kyle Young (16 points), Duane Washington Jr. (16 points) and Justice Sueing (12 points) – scored in double digits.

Iowa, behind an attack that finished fourth in adjusted efficiency for the past two decades, threatened to pull out before the middle of the second half.

A pair of threes from Joe Wieskamp and Luke Garza made Fran McCaffrey’s team 11 points at the top with 2:29 pm left. At the time, the Buckeyes had only taken one shot from the field since they left the locker room when halftime was over. But back-to-back 3-pointers by Duane Washington – along with a free throw from Zed Key – narrowed the deficit to four runs, and a subsequent 10-5 run set the Ohio State 67-66 with 10:12 to go . They exchanged blows for the rest of the night and responded quickly every time the opponent got something offensive.

The first half between these two teams lived up to all expectations, especially offensive. They both fired at least 47 percent from the floor and 40 percent from 3-point range.

They went back and forth, with Ohio State taking a 20-12 lead after eight and a half minutes behind six off-the-bench points from Zed Key. But a quick 10-0 Iowa run that ended with Chris Holtmann calling a timeout after 71 seconds of action put the Hawkeyes at the top and set a competitive trajectory late in the first half. Neither team had a more than four-point lead in the latter part of the first half, and Iowa entered the locker room after 20 minutes while maintaining a 45-42 lead.

Three players from Iowa – Luka Garza, Jordan Bohannon and Jack Nunge – each scored 11 points in the first half. Bohannon and Nunge made up six threes together. One of the bigger boosts for the Hawkeyes was the difference in errors. They committed nine errors compared to just three errors drawn by the Buckeyes in the first half. That led to a 10 to 2 discrepancy in the free throw as the teams regrouped in their respective dressing rooms.

The Buckeyes got 10 first half points from Justice Sueing. Duane Washington Jr. and EJ Liddell also added seven each. Meechie Johnson’s six points and Key’s six also helped the Buckeyes offensive.

Next one: Ohio State will head to College Park, Maryland on Monday for its only game against the Terrapins (10-8, 4-7 Big Ten) of the regular season. It will tip at 9pm on FS1.

Other notes

• Chris Holtmann stuck with his first five: Duane Washington Jr., Justin Ahrens, Justice Sueing, EJ Liddell and Kyle Young. CJ Walker kept coming off the couch.

• Ohio State did not have two of its 13 scholarship participants. Jimmy Sotos was ruled out for the season after tests on his shoulder separation showed he needs surgery, and Ibrahima Diallo remains out with a sprained MCL. Ahead of the game, Holtmann was referring to how he would have liked Diallo to be available for the Iowa frontcourt game.

• Iowa did not have a starting guard CJ Frederick at its disposal. The team’s fourth top scorer (8.7 points per game) was ruled out with a lower leg injury. He is a 50 percent three point shooter.

• This was Young’s 100th career game as Buckeye. The senior forward scored an average of eight points and 5.9 rebounds in 19 minutes per game over his four-year career.

• The Buckeyes came in the day trailing 79-76 in the overall series with the Hawkeyes, and were behind 51-25 on Thursday when they played in Iowa City.