Ohio State has spent the first three games of its season making the same mistake over and over again, and Jake Diebler is done pretending it’s a small issue.
The Buckeyes have been getting punched in the mouth right after halftime, a stretch Diebler sees as the most important part of the game’s opening phase. In each contest so far, the first four minutes of the second half have turned into a problem area, and that’s a big reason Ohio State is sitting at 2-1 instead of feeling a whole lot better about where it stands heading into a matchup with No. 4 UConn.
“We are taking ownership over the start of our second halves,” Diebler said to the media on Thursday afternoon.
“That’s an area where we certainly have to be better.”
The numbers back up the concern. In the first four minutes after halftime, Ohio State has been outscored 35-16 across its three games. That has turned comfortable situations into tense ones, and in one case helped flip the game entirely.
The clearest example came against BYU. Ohio State went into the locker room with a three-point lead, though that margin could have been larger if not for a defensive lapse that allowed a corner three at the buzzer.
Then the second half began, and the Cougars immediately seized control. BYU scored three buckets in 84 seconds, turned the deficit into a four-point lead, and outscored Ohio State 16-9 in that opening stretch of the half.
The Buckeyes never recovered and fell 94-83.
The same pattern showed up in the home opener against Youngstown State, only Ohio State survived it. The Buckeyes led 38-33 at halftime, then came out sluggish and needed nearly five minutes to get their first second-half basket.
While Ohio State stalled, Youngstown State hit two different three-pointers, including one from Columbus native and Walnut Ridge alum Dom Aekins, and briefly grabbed a 40-38 lead. Youngstown State won the first four-minute battle of the half 8-4.
Ohio State eventually steadied itself and pulled away late for an 89-65 win.
Monday night against Marshall may have been the most jarring version yet.
Ohio State played its best first half of the season, taking a 45-27 lead into halftime behind strong work from Anthony Thompson and Jimmie Williams. For 20 minutes, the Buckeyes looked connected on both ends. Then the second half started, and the game changed fast.
Marshall opened with a 9-3 burst in the first two minutes, fueled by three buckets from Noah Otshudi. Diebler called timeout as the Herd started to build momentum, but the break didn’t stop the surge.
Ohio State missed two straight shots coming out of it, Marshall scored the next seven points, and a 16-3 run pulled the visitors within 48-43. Less than five minutes into the half, Diebler had already used two timeouts.
Ohio State was outscored 11-3 in the first four minutes after halftime.
Afterward, Diebler pointed to the parts of the game that were slipping away from his team.
“I was disappointed in our shot selection if I remember correctly,” he said. “I was disappointed in our (defensive) bite and pressure on the ball.
We had a couple breakdowns there defensively. We’ve got to be able at times to take a deep breath, call a timeout, and come over and talk through what’s happening out there.”
Once the Buckeyes regrouped, they got the ball to Amare Bynum on back-to-back possessions, and he scored both times to push the lead back to 10. Outside of that early second-half avalanche, Ohio State outscored Marshall 81-58 over the rest of the game and won by 10.
Diebler said the team spent the next two days going over the entire second half from that Marshall game, with special attention on the rough opening minutes.
“We watched all of that, came out and had a really good practice (Wednesday),” he said.
The sample is still small, with only three games played out of 32, but the trend is impossible to miss. Ohio State has either watched a lead shrink almost immediately after halftime or let a big cushion get uncomfortably shaky.
That’s the kind of habit that can get exposed quickly against UConn. And with Dan Hurley on the other sideline, the Buckeyes are about to find out how costly those second-half slow starts can be.
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