5 takeaways: Dale Bonner's clutch shot helps Ohio State stun Michigan State
EAST LANSING, Mich. – Of course Dale Bonner knew the shot was going in.
It didn’t matter that the Baylor graduate transfer hadn’t hit multiple 3-pointers in nearly three months. It didn’t matter that Ohio State hadn’t won on the road in 421 days, that it hadn’t won in this building in 12 years or that he was shooting a meager 17.2% from 3-point range in Big Ten play when he walked into the Breslin Center on Sunday afternoon.
All that mattered was that he had the ball in his hands, the game on the line and a chance to turn the page on it all. It was Bonner’s 3-pointer with 0.2 seconds left that lifted Ohio State past Michigan State, 60-57, to cap a game in which the Buckeyes led for a total of six seconds and still were able to celebrate in front of a stunned crowd of 14,797.
“I was just trying to get a shot up,” Bonner said. “We practice these situations and I was open, just shot it and it went in.”
He wasn’t so much open as in need of getting a shot in the air. Matched up against Tyson Walker on the left wing in front of the Ohio State bench, Bonner collected himself, launched over the outstretched hands of the Spartan guard and found only net. The buzzer sounded, the Buckeyes poured onto the court and interim coach Jake Diebler collapsed in a heap near the scorers’ table as the cheers of a few dozen scarlet-clad Ohio State faithful echoed through an otherwise funereal partisan crowd.
It’s a play Bonner said the Buckeyes practice all the time, but freshman forward Devin Royal cut off his teammate before he could finish his answer.
“He does this in practice,” Royal said. “He hits these all the time.”
The Buckeyes had been trying to get the ball to Bonner in the final seconds of a 79-77 loss at Iowa. That was six games, 23 days and one coach ago for Ohio State. It didn’t work then.
It’s not clear that the plan was specifically to get the ball to Bonner against the Spartans. The absence of Jamison Battle, the Big Ten’s leading 3-point shooter, forced the Buckeyes to compensate in myriad ways and also robbed them of their best perimeter threat. Until Bonner’s shot, Ohio State was 2 for 16 (12.5%) from deep against the Spartans, but he had one of the makes.
“That was me drawing up a play, coach (Tom) Izzo taking that play away and players making plays,” Ohio State interim coach Jake Diebler said.
Tied at 57 with 6.4 seconds left, Ohio State took the ball out of bounds from underneath the Michigan State basket. The Buckeyes were without timeouts, and it was Royal who was tasked with inbounding the ball. Michigan State took away the first option, Diebler said, and Royal had to wait to make a play.
The wherewithal shown by the freshman, Diebler said, set the tone for what was to follow.
“Dale’s shot obviously was incredible, but think of the poise Devin Royal showed taking the ball out of bounds with no timeouts when our first option was taken away,” Diebler said. “Bruce (Thornton) double-cutting to get open, having the awareness to get the ball down the floor and then Dale having the awareness to get a shot up. That was players making plays, and it started with Devin Royal and his poise taking it out of bounds.”
Once Royal got the ball to Thornton, he was able to push it up the left sideline and feed Bonner. The rest will go down in Ohio State lore as the first winning shot for the Buckeyes in this building since William Buford’s deep jumper lifted them to a share of the 2012 Big Ten title in the final game of the regular season.
Not that Royal or Bonner had any recollection of that shot. Both professed to not having seen the shot, which for Michigan State’s Draymond Green spoiled both senior day and his birthday. The next nine Ohio State games here amounted to losses by an average of 8.0 points per game. Two were three-point losses, one was an 18-point loss and the rest scattered somewhere in the middle.
None of that mattered much to Bonner or Royal, who were just glad to finally get the monkey off their backs and win a road game.
“Oh man, it feels good,” Bonner said. “We put in a lot of work, a lot of unseen hours and we finally got a road win.”
Here are four more takeaways from the win.
Jake Diebler notches a second signature win
Diebler has now led Ohio State to a 2-1 record since taking over for Chris Holtmann as interim coach. The loss came Thursday night at Minnesota, but otherwise the Buckeyes have added two significant wins to their resume: the 73-67 win against No. 2 Purdue last Sunday, and now this win against the Spartans.
Although it’s likely too late to build a realistic NCAA Tournament resume, both are Quadrant 1 wins. And as incoming athletic director Ross Bjork begins a search for Holtmann’s full-time replacement, Diebler was asked after the win: does he think he’s coaching his way into consideration for the full-time job?
“I know this isn’t the answer you want to hear but I am fully committed to serving this team as well as I possibly can right now and I’ve asked those guys to focus on the task at hand and I’ve got to live up to that,” he said. “The leadership of our team is so critical. This is about them. Gene (Smith) asked me to serve them as well as I possibly can.”
The Breslin Center is the only Big Ten arena where Ohio State never won under Holtmann.
Without Jamison Battle, Devin Royal shines
The Buckeyes won this game despite the absence of Battle, who rolled an ankle early in Thursday’s homecoming game at Minnesota. He retaped it, returned and still finished with 21 points against his former team, but the quick turnaround meant he was unable to recover in time to play the Spartans.
Without him, Ohio State finished 3 for 17 (17.6%) from 3 but still won thanks in part to Royal’s career-high 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting. He also finished with two of Ohio State’s seven steals, helping the Buckeyes finish with a 12-7 advantage in points off of turnovers.
“It’s always being ready when your name’s called is the most important thing,” Royal said. “I’m going to be ready every time my name’s called and do the best I can.”
Diebler elevated freshman Scotty Middleton into the starting lineup to replace Battle, and he finished with 3 points, a rebound, an assist and a steal in 21:34.
“I told them before the game, we’re down a man and we’ve just got to be even tougher now,” Diebler said. “We’ve got to be even more together. It certainly caused us some issues from a spacing standpoint and the way they were able to shrink the floor but guys stepped up and they played to their strengths. There wasn’t anybody out there trying to do anything completely different. We just stayed aggressive within what we were doing.”
Royal picked Ohio State ahead of Michigan State, which made a strong push to sign the standout from Pickerington Central.
Buckeyes bigs play well
Minnesota’s two-headed post monster of Dawson Garcia and Pharrel Payne gave the Buckeyes fits Thursday night at Williams Arena, combining for 37 points and 13 rebounds while shooting 12 for 19 (63.2%) from inside the arc. Ohio State starting center Felix Okpara went scoreless for a second consecutive game and had two rebounds while Zed Key had 7 points and just one rebound off the bench.
Sunday, Okpara had 10 points and six rebounds and Key added 4 points and seven rebounds. Okpara blocked two shots and had a steal and Key also had a block.
“Felix, he was awesome today,” Diebler said. “I thought he and Zed Key, you look at their production and their minutes was impressive. Those guys played to their strengths and got to their moves. I’m happy for them because they’ve been working on that. The ball hasn’t quite bounced their way the last couple weeks but today it did for them.”
Ohio State Buckeyes: Join the Ohio State Sports Insider text group with Bill Rabinowitz, Joey Kaufman Adam Jardy
Defense leads the way, for once
The 60 points are the fewest scored by the Buckeyes in a win since they beat No. 10 seed Loyola Chicago 54-41 in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament. Ohio State finished allowing Michigan State to score an average of 91.4 points per 100 possessions, its seventh-best best defensive performance of the season and best since holding New Orleans to 53.4 on Dec. 21.
The difference, Diebler said, was Ohio State’s ability to finish out defensive possessions unlike at Minnesota.
“What we didn’t do against Minnesota we carried over and did much better today,” he said. “We were really direct on what we needed to do better. We took it as a positive. They were controllable things. Our defense has been better. To guard for 25 seconds and not finish the play, I felt like we did that at such a high level specifically the second part of the second half. I think that was a big difference.”
Ohio State held the Spartans to seven points in the final 11:04.
Get more Ohio State basketball news by listening to our podcasts
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State's Dale Bonner shows clutch shooting gene: 5 takeaways
