Ohio State Lazy, Asleep in 90-76 Blowout at Penn State
It's no disgrace losing on the road in the Big Ten this season.
It's happened to the best teams in the league, the middle-tier teams and, of course, the lower-echelon teams.
Before Saturday, road teams were just 6-38 in league play.
So, losing away from home isn't an indictment.
Not playing hard, not being prepared for the challenge, not responding to adversity...that's a different story.
And that's the unfortunate story of Ohio State's trip to Penn State on Saturday.
The Buckeyes had to know how eager the Lions would be for a chunk of flesh.
Penn State had lost three straight on the heels of a five-game winning streak that dated to a 106-74 loss in Columbus in early December.
There are dark alleys with terrified screams emanating from them that are more inviting than the Bryce Jordan Center, but the Buckeyes turned a blind eye and ear to the impending danger and sleep-walked through a 90-76 embarrassment.
The loss is Ohio State's fifth in six games and sixth in nine games since routing Penn State on Dec. 7.
The No. 21 Buckeyes are 2-5 in the Big Ten and likely to drop out of the Top 25 on Monday.
That's a free-fall from where they were at No. 2 in the nation on Dec. 23.
The Buckeyes greeted their second straight Saturday noon start with an effort even more lacking than their lay-down at Indiana a week ago.
"I thought it was as poor a start as we've had in any game," OSU coach Chris Holtmann said. "I thought it was a really poor start. We have to find a way to coach and play better."
Penn State hadn't shot above 37% or averaged more than 60 points over its three previous games, but hit 54 percent against the Buckeyes.
"The story of the game was that we just didn't set enough of a tone with our defense," Holtmann said. "...There were too many errors collectively. That's where our overall effort has to improve."
The Lions exploded despite foul problems for leading scorer Lamar Stevens that put him on the bench the final four minutes of the first half and for six minutes early in the second half.
When Stevens struggled with foul issues in the teams' earlier meeting, OSU ran the Lions out of Value City Arena by topping the 100-point mark in a Big Ten game for the first time in 28 years.
This time, with Stevens out late in the first half and a chance to close a seven-point deficit over the last 3:30, Ohio State allowed a 7-0 run that fed Penn State's eventual 15-point margin at the break.
Kyle Young and E.J. Liddell missed at the rim during that Lions' getaway, perpetuating a trend that dogged OSU from the beginning.
The Buckeyes missed five shots in the paint, four at the rim, in the first six minutes and came up empty on 11 such attempts in the first half.
Young went 0-for-4 within arm's reach of the rim in the first half. Typically one of OSU's toughest players, he got yanked for his timidity and sat while Holtmann looked for answers elsewhere.
Young wound up playing just 12 minutes.
"I just didn't think overall he was playing with the kind of energy we needed him to play with," Holtmann said.
Liddell was no better in relief, however, and Kaleb Wesson also played marshmallow-soft in the post at both ends.
Holtmann removed him for poor play at times, as well, but there were no solutions on the OSU bench.
Stevens led the Lions with 24 points.
He highlighted his team's dominance, and Ohio State's passivity, on a drive from midcourt with 2:30 left, driving around Liddell and dunking over the Wesson brothers, both of whom shied from challenging him at the rim.
"He set the tone there early and you knew would," Holtmann said. "He did not play well against us at our place. He really set the tone. that opened shots for a lot of guys. We had trouble guarding him the whole game."
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