Ohio State basketball loses on the road to Minnesota

Stop me if you’ve heard this before; the Ohio State basketball team lost on the road. They continue to struggle away from the Schott, no matter who is coaching. Jake Diebler had a chance to end Ohio State’s embarrassing road losing streak. Instead, they fell to the Golden Gophers 88-79 in a game that wasn’t close after halftime.

It didn’t look good early after the Buckeyes got down 8-0 right out of the gate. They also did that against Purdue and were able to still pull the upset, but that was not the case on Thursday night. Minnesota hit too many three-pointers and grabbed too many offensive rebounds. Ohio State’s defense continues to stink.

The Ohio State basketball program hasn’t won a road game in 13 months

Ohio State may not win a road game until another coach comes in. Perhaps that new coach can teach some perimeter defense. The Buckeyes can’t stop the ball and keep allowing wide-open threes. Minnesota hit eight of them. Jake Diebler also said he was going to make his team play faster on offense. That didn’t really happen either.

Rebounding is really what did the Buckeyes in. They allowed 13 offensive rebounds. Allowing that many second-chance points is a recipe for disaster. They just weren’t able to get close enough in the second half to really put a scare into Minnesota. After an eight-point halftime lead for the Golden Gophers, Ohio State only got it as close as five. They couldn’t get any closer.

Bruce Thornton continues to play great for this Ohio State basketball team, no matter what the situation is. He led Ohio State in scoring with 25 points and really started hunting his shot more in the second half. The problem was that the team couldn’t get any stops on the other end to make his offensive output matter.

Ohio State is in early talks with Dusty May to see if he would be interested in the head coaching job, so that ends any speculation that Jake Diebler could get the job at the end of the year. Whoever gets the position next season needs to teach this team how to play defense.