Ohio State basketball gets important win at USC to keep NCAA chances afloat

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The additions to the Big Ten have been great, especially through football season, but a byproduct of all of it has been later games. With the coast-to-coast exposure now, games out on the West Coast can happen pretty late, and that’s exactly what we had with Ohio State staying out in L.A. to take on USC Wednesday night.

The game didn’t tip off until 10:30 p.m. ET, so if you stayed up late enough to witness the outcome, kudos to you. And if you did, then you know the Buckeyes got a pretty crucial, 87-82 Quad 1 road win to help keep their NCAA Tournament hopes afloat.

As with most things this season though, it wasn’t easy. Ohio State took control of the game in the first half, extending the lead all the way out to 17 points at one point, and cruised into halftime up by 14 points and seemingly in firm control. OSU made its first eight three-pointers of the game but lost a little touch in the second half.

Ohio State kept pretty good control of the game until about midway through the second half when the Trojans began to make a run by slowly chipping away at the deficit, eventually tying the game at 80 points apiece with just 1:07 left in the game. A three-point play by Devin Royal was huge right after though, and the Buckeyes were able to show solid ball security and clutch free-throw shooting to salt the game away.

Without a doubt, the game was won because of the hot shooting from beyond the arc. After starting off the game on fire, OSU finished 11-of-20 from three-point range to USC’s 7-of-18. All other stats were extremely close including turnovers, shooting percentage, rebounds, and the effort from the free-throw line.

The Buckeyes had four players in double figures, with Micah Parrish and Bruce Thornton leading the way by pouring in 20 points each. Parrish was hot from the floor, knocking down 7-of-12 attempts (3-of-6 three-pointers). John Mobley Jr. (18) and Devin Royal (13), were the other two players that helped contribute the most to the scoring.

Going into the contest,…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/ohio-state-basketball-gets-important-224300202.html

Author : Buckeyes Wire

Publish date : 2025-02-27 22:43:00

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