Ohio State Suffers Worst Loss Of Season To Nebraska

The Buckeyes have lost two straight tough games just eight days before the Big Ten Tournament begins.

In fairness, I think the Big Ten is the best league in the country for college hoops. I don't believe that any team in the league stinks.

But Nebraska is far and away the worst team in the conference this year and a late season loss at home, especially considering the Buckeyes desperately needed a win in response to the Maryland loss, is really hard to swallow.

Chris Holtmann acknowledged on Monday that he thought his team looked mentally and physically worn down in their recent loss to Maryland.

Unfortunately, Ohio State the Buckeyes didn't look much sharper on Tuesday night in a 78-70 loss to Nebraska.

Let's face it, the Scarlet and Gray are pretty beat up. Zed Key missed Tuesday's game as he tries to recover from a lower body injury from this past weekend. Justice Sueing played 30 minutes in the first two games of the season, but hasn't been seen since then. Seth Towns hasn't played a single minute this year. Then Kyle Young left Tuesday's game with an injury.

At least Meechie Johnson Jr. was able to play without a mask on Tuesday, although he only saw two minutes. Instead, Jimmy Sotos played more minutes than he has since late November (and admittedly he played fine).

On one hand, last year's late season collapse felt like a complete doomsday scenario. But Ohio State rallied in the Big Ten tournament to beat Minnesota, Purdue and Michigan to get to the conference championship game, where they ultimately fell short of Illinois in overtime.

The difference this year is that the Buckeyes are losing games down the stretch to teams that are not in the hop half of the Big Ten, and they're on the verge of losing a double-bye in next week's tournament in the process.

Falling to Maryland was a tough scene, but losing to a Nebraska team that is in the conversation for worst team in a Power 5 conference this year is a different feeling altogether. The Huskers came into the night ranked 344th out of 350 teams in scoring defense, but the Buckeyes shot just 38.6 percent and hit only 2-of-12 3-pointers in the second half.

After not getting within five points for 13 minutes in the second half, the Buckeyes cut it to four with under a minutes to play, but they got no closer. E.J. Liddell led the way with 27 points and Malaki Branham had 16 before fouling out late, but nobody else had more than eight points.

Maybe Nebraska just came in hot. They dropped 93 points in a blowout win over Penn State last weekend which was the best offensive performance they've had in a conference game since 1999. They hadn't beaten a ranked team in the last 24 chances they had, dating back to 2019.

Whatever the case, the Buckeyes have to play a tough Michigan State team in 48 hours before closing their season against their rivals at home. 

Hopefully, they can find a way to get healthy and rested soon because things are trending the wrong direction.

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