The Ohio State Buckeyes men’s basketball team is back in action as the season cuts off tonight against the BYU Cougars at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. After halftime, the Buckeyes (0-1) fell to the Cougars (1-0), 94-83.
The Buckeyes started off with a three-pointer from Amare Bynum. Bynum scored the first five points for Ohio State, and after two more baskets, the Buckeyes had a 13-5 lead in the first period.
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The Buckeyes and Cougars responded with back-and-forth baskets, and then BYU went on a run to cut the lead to 37-34 at the half because Ohio State had a three-pointer after Justin Pippen.
At halftime, the usual suspects led the Buckeyes with Bynum, Mobley and Pippen all recording eight points. For BYU, Rob Wright led the way with fourteen points, Tyler Betsey added eight points. Two five-star freshmen, Anthony Thompson for Ohio State and Bruce Branch III, had two points in a combined 20 minutes and were 1-for-9 from the field.
BYU came out and took an immediate lead, going on a 7-0 run at the half, and taking a 41-37 lead. Jelavic made a bucket to cut BYU’s lead to two points, but a three from Rob Wright again made it twenty-eight.
Pippen fouled off his third through Wright and a one-out save, and he had a seat to Curtis Dats. The ensuing free throw gave Wright 20 points with 16 minutes left in the game. Another foul bucket gave BYU a 50-43 lead.
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Bynum added three touchdowns and a touchdown pass, and BYU led 50-48 at the 16th halftime timeout. But before the timeout, Bynum slipped and rolled his ankle. He went on to score with 15 minutes left in the game. He came back quickly and left the game again with 13 minutes left as Pippen tied the game at 52.
After the Buckeyes and Cougars traded baskets and came back to tie the game at 59, BYU went on a 13-2 run to take a 72-61 lead with 7:13 left in the game.
With five minutes remaining in the game, Mobley picked up two fumbles on consecutive defensive possessions and fouled out of the game. Anthony Thompson scored the first points of the season from the free throw line with four minutes left. BYU led 77-69 at the sub-4 half timeout.
BYU took an 84-76 lead after Collin Chandler’s dunk and Pippen’s foul. BYU ended up winning by a final score of 94-83, with Rob Wright leading the way with 33 points. Bynum led Ohio State with 20 points, and Mobley added 14. Andrija Jelavic added 13 points, all in the second half.
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The Buckeyes are back in action Friday night when they host Youngstown State at 6:30 on Big Ten Network Plus.
Here are three takeaways from the Buckeyes’ opening loss against BYU.
The Buckeyes were flexible early with rotations
In the first half, 11 players were exposed playing time in the first six minutes of the game. Bynum, Mobley, and Pippen all played fourteen minutes in the first half, but the other eight guys shared the floor and all played more than five minutes. It’s early in the season, and it’s clear that the Buckeyes and Jake Diebler are working through exactly how they want the rotation to go.
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With a couple of games coming up that will be out of hand, the staff will play more rotations and see what they have with so many new faces.
Love Bynum and John Mobley are the guys
There has been a lot of talk this offseason about freshman Thompson and LJ Smith and adding depth to the bench, but this game shows that John Mobley and Amare Bynum are still the guys who want this team to go high.
This bench will need to be better than last year, but Mobley and Bynum are the stars of the team, and both have All-Conference potential.
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This is a team with no identity yet
There have always been concerns early in the season when life begins without Bruce Thornton this season, but it was very clear, especially late in the game, that Thornton was no longer on this team. After Mobley fouled out, they struggled to find a way to pass the guy, and the offense went stagnant at times.
It’s time for them to get in that shape, and it’s hard to make that transition when you’ve lost a four-year starter, but it was evident in this game that BYU didn’t have Rob Wright and Ohio State didn’t have Bruce Thornton.