Buckeyes shrug off late Penn State run, see double-digit road win as sign of progress

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – No last-minute theatrics were necessary. When the final seconds ticked off the clock inside the Bryce Jordan Center on Sunday night, no desperate heave was in the air, and no defense was frantically backpedaling after a game-clinching shot had just landed.

The Ohio State lead was in double figures, where it had been for the majority of the game and nearly the entire second half. So while the Nittany Lions were briefly able to whittle it down to a single-digit deficit during the final five minutes, the Buckeyes were in full-on celebratory form after winning their Big Ten opener 76-62 in a game they led for 34:31.

Leaning against the wall in close proximity to a locker room that moments earlier had heard the chanted version of the final lines of the “Buckeye Battle Cry” spilling into the hallway, coach Chris Holtmann had his nits to pick about the way his team beat the Nittany Lions. But an 18-point second-half lead being cut to six points with 2:39 to play wasn’t among them.

“What I would say to people is, do people think that that’s just us? That’s college basketball,” he said. “(If they think that’s just us,) they need to watch more games than just our games, because the reality is that’s college basketball. Teams make runs, and teams make runs at home. We need to do better in some things. We own that, but to say this is something that happens every game or whatever the case may be, go watch another game and you’ll understand that that happens.”

Tuesday morning, CBS analyst and Ohio State alumnus Clark Kellogg wrote on Twitter that the win at Penn State was “workmanlike roadkill,” adding “THAT is how you validate growth and progress” on the heels of an emotional home win against No. 1 Duke five days prior. The sentiment will be put to the test again Wednesday with a 9 p.m. tip against Towson.

At no point did Penn State have the ball with a chance to make it a single-possession game during the final 33 minutes. The high point came less than four minutes into the second half when Jamari Wheeler stole the ball from former teammate Sam Sessoms, burned it up the court and finished a layup that led to a Penn State timeout with 16:22 to play. When the Nittany Lions used a 6-0 run to pull within 64-57 with 4:25 to play, Meechie Johnson Jr. hit a 3-pointer to push it back to double digits.

Two minutes later, Justin Ahrens immediately answered a pair of Jalen Pickett free throws to push Ohio State’s lead back to nine points. Holtmann called them two of the game’s most critical shots, because they showed that the Buckeyes could stem the tide as a sleepy crowd thought about getting into the game late.

“There’s always things you can work on, but you did some really good things to build that 18-point lead and you did some things to give it up, but so did they,” Holtmann said. “They made some plays. There’s some things we’ve got to get better on, and do a better job in, but I’m really proud of our guys’ effort.”

Wheeler said the key was defensive communication. Already ahead comfortably, the Buckeyes knew they didn’t need to score more: if they kept Penn State from scoring, they couldn’t lose. Fifth-year forward Kyle Young said the final minutes were a continuation of the lessons learned in final-second wins against Akron and Seton Hall, a last-second loss to Florida and battles against Duke and Xavier that were one-possession games in the final 20 seconds.

“You have a lot of experiences on the road that end up like this where teams battle back,” he said. “That’s just how it goes. It was just us staying poised, getting the right shots we wanted, stringing together some stops and that’s pretty much what did it for us.”

ajardy@dispatch.com

@AdamJardy

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State basketball: Dominant win at Penn State shows team growth