Takeaways: Ohio State makes too many mistakes to pull off win at No. 18 Illinois

Posted by author February 2, 2025 Basketball

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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – There are two-point shots Illinois coach Brad Underwood is more than fine with allowing.

From a technical standpoint, Underwood calls it “rear-view contesting” shots. In short, with an Illini defender on your hip after going around a ball screen, players are pressured into taking tough twos, often off-balance floaters, with his primary post players waiting near the rim to provide further coverage.

This wasn’t news to Ohio State when it went to No. 18 Illinois on Sunday afternoon. In winning their last three games to climb back to .500 in Big Ten play, the Buckeyes brought a burgeoning sense of confidence anchored by the belief that they had turned a corner by playing smarter, more connected basketball.

It made the ending of an 87-79 loss at the State Farm Center all the more galling for coach Jake Diebler and his players, who led 68-63 with 7:43 to play but were outscored 24-11 from there as the Fighting Illini (15-7, 7-5 Big Ten) won going away.

Ohio State (13-9, 5-6) missed 13 of its final 16 shots while allowing Illinois to hit six of its final eight shots and go 18 for 28 (64.3%) from the floor during the second half.

“Especially on the road against a ranked team, you have to make sure you execute on both sides of the ball,” junior guard Bruce Thornton told The Dispatch. “A lot of miscommunications, easy scores and us taking tough twos and not executing the offense. You just can’t win games like that.”

It’s not been the formula the Buckeyes had been following in winning at No. 11 Purdue, at home against Iowa and at Penn State leading into this game. After shaking off a run of three losses by five total points, Ohio State had been preaching accountability, connectedness and overall better play while entering February as a team on the rise in the Big Ten standings.

Sunday afternoon, they deviated from that script. Illinois had plenty to do with it, but the vibe from Thornton and sophomore forward Devin Royal was more of anger than disappointment in the loss – anger because this, they felt, was a winnable game if they played how they have been.

“I just feel like our energy was off,” Royal, who poured in a game-high 29 points, said. “In the second half we wasn’t as connected as we needed to be, as we was before. I don’t know if that was early game, people were tired, but it was a little off, our energy and aggressiveness in the second half for sure.”

Added Thornton: “You know when you’re away against a good opponent, runs happen. You’ve just got to get stops. The quality of shots they were getting was lay-ups, and it’s hard. Some of it is a communication error, some of it was we just have to play better one-on-one on defense. Some more stops would’ve helped us on the offensive end, but we didn’t get enough stops today.”

Ohio State shot a season-worst 32.0% (16 for 50) from two-point range. Defensively, it allowed Illinois to shoot a blistering 68.4% (26 for 38) from two-point range, the worst mark allowed by the Buckeyes all year.

“The communication errors that resulted in layups ultimately cost us,” Diebler said. “You’ve not going to hold teams scoreless, but when we executed our defensive coverage we did some really good things. They made us pay with layups a couple times when we broke down and ultimately that hurt us.”

And offensively, the Buckeyes played into Underwood’s plans by taking quick, contested, off-balance twos as Illinois was carving them up at the other end.

“They’re good,” Diebler said of Illinois. “They’ve been proving that throughout the course of the year. I think we’re good. I feel like we played really well for a lot of this game. We’ve just got to keep playing a little smarter, and we’ve done that lately. Today we just weren’t quite as good in that area.”

Here are four other takeaways from the loss.

Sean Stewart’s absence was felt

As Illinois was enjoying the return of sophomore center Tomislav Ivisic from a three-game absence while battling mononucleosis, Ohio State played without sophomore power forward/center Sean Stewart due to illness.

After transferring from Duke, Stewart’s primarily been a rebounder and occasional dunker for Ohio State while battling foul trouble and frequently playing as an undersized center. The 6-9, 200-pound Stewart has averaged 6.1 points and 6.0 rebounds while playing 18.0 minutes per game, but he watched from the bench after being listed as questionable on the pregame availability report.

Without him in the game, freshman forward Morez Johnson Jr. had a game to remember. The 6-9, 255-pound forward scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting and, more impressively, pulled down a career-high 15 rebounds. Seven of them came on the offensive glass, where he was often gesturing for his teammates to simply chuck up a shot and let him go get it.

Johnson paired with Ivisic, who had 12 points and 10 rebounds, to power the nation’s best-rebounding team to a 43-31 advantage on the glass.

“Their versatility being able to play big, they’ve played significant stretches where they’ve played smaller,” Diebler said. “We missed one of our guys that would’ve allowed us to play a little bigger, but both those big guys were impactful. Morez Johnson’s offensive rebounding was really impactful. The rebounding alone was different than maybe what they had shown in previous games.”

Stewart participated in most of Ohio State’s warmups but did not run onto the court with the team after the final pregame huddle in the locker room, walking out a moment later and remaining on the bench.

“We absolutely missed Sean on the glass,” Diebler said. “We felt like if they were able to play big, Sean’s the guy we needed to be able to do that. He really tried to get back. He’s been battling an illness. We needed a little more time for him.”

Devin Royal was impressive

The sophomore forward sunk a 3-pointer with about a minute left in the first half to put Ohio State ahead 40-36, and when Ivan Njegovan tipped in a Thornton miss on the next possession the Buckeyes had a 42-36 halftime lead.

Royal went into the locker room with 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting. He was also 3 for 5 from deep, already the most 3-point makes in his career after shooting 19.2% (10 for 52) through his first 53 games. He finished with 29 but only got six shots in the second half, although he did draw three fouls and hit all six of his free-throw attempts.

“They didn’t’ really defend me at all differently,” he said. “I just didn’t have the ball in my hand that much. I didn’t feel like they defended me differently at all. They was letting me to get to my spots. I’ve just got to make my shots.”

This is the second time Royal has made multiple 3-pointers in a game. The other time was in the season-opening win against No. 19 Texas in Las Vegas on Nov. 4, when he was 2 for 4.

“Just playing my game, knocking down my shots they were giving to me,” he said of his shooting. “Hold my follow-through on my jump shot helped a lot. I realized I need to start doing that. Just have confidence. That’s really all I can say.”

Ohio State’s supporting cast was a no-show

Stewart physically wasn’t on the floor, but his production wasn’t too far off from most of the Ohio State roster. Aside from the Buckeyes’ big three of Thornton, Royal and Mobley, the other six Ohio State players to see action combined for 10 points and 14 rebounds.

After a run of four straight double-digit scoring outings where he averaged 17.8 points per game, Micah Parrish had just 4 points on 1-of-5 shooting with four fouls in 30 minutes.

“Micah’s been really consistent for us,” Diebler said. “His foul trouble impacted him. I felt like he wasn’t quite the same. We’ve probably got to find a way to get him the ball more.”

Stewart’s replacement in the starting lineup, 7-1, 215-pound center Aaron Bradshaw, had the same number of points as rebounds: two. Ivan Njegovan, Ohio State’s 7-1, 250-pound freshman Croatian center, had 2 points and one rebound in 14 minutes.

Other than that, Ques Glover had 2 points on 1-of-5 shooting and fouled out in 16 minutes while Evan Mahaffey (11 minutes) and Colin White (two minutes) were both scoreless.

Bruce Thornton, John Mobley prolific but inefficient

Ohio State’s primary backcourt finished with 40 total points but needed 39 shots to get there. Thornton had 22 points on 7-of-18 shooting, finishing with five assists and no turnovers, while Mobley had 18 points on 6-of-21 shooting with one assists, one steal and one turnover.

Inside the 3-point line, they were a combined 5 for 24. Thornton missed his final five shots from the floor after his 3-pointer that put the Buckeyes ahead by five with about eight minutes to play. In the second half, they were a combined 8 for 27 from the floor and 3 for 16 from two.

“Bruce put a couple on us early, and that’s hard to do,” Underwood said. “It’s fatiguing, it’s challenging. When you’re wired to score like both of those guys are, they’re going to take some shots. They’re going to make some, but I thought we did a much better job of just winning the battle of the ball screen by staying relentless and forcing them down into the paint for twos.”

ajardy@dispatch.com

@AdamJardy