Does Ohio State have a problem holding leads? Here's where it stacks up in the Big Ten
It was hard to shake the familiar feeling that crept into Value City Arena on Wednesday night.
It probably started somewhere around the midpoint of the second half, when Ohio State’s 12-point lead was whittled to five with 8:44 remaining by a persistent, scrappy Rutgers team that trailed by a game-high 17 points with 4:14 remaining in the first half. A Bruce Thornton three-point play briefly calmed things, but the Scarlet Knights got back within five points with 4:37 to play.
And then within a point with 3:20 left. And then when the visitors had two possessions in the final 2:42 while trailing by three points only to turn it over each time. So when Roddy Gayle Jr. hit two free throws with 12.2 seconds left to make it a two-possession game and ultimately set the final score at 76-72, the crowd of 10,614 let out a roar that might have been equal parts relief and jubilation.
It’s true that parity is up in men’s college basketball. It’s also true that the bottom line is to win games and that Wednesday’s victory moved the Buckeyes to 12-2 overall and 2-1 in the Big Ten. For those reasons, Ohio State wasn’t about to apologize for finding a way to grind out a game that had the potential – at least momentarily – to be a reprise of the Penn State game, where the Buckeyes led by 18 during the second half but lost 83-80.
“The sign of this team has been really good poise, for the most part, down the stretch and they showed that,” coach Chris Holtmann said after beating Rutgers.
Ohio State is now 5-2 in games decided by 10 points or fewer this season after going 3-13 in such games during the regular season last year. This year, those five wins have been by an average of 6.0 points in games where the Buckeyes have had an average high lead of 13.4 points.
The Buckeyes led Rutgers for 37:10 in a game with only two lead changes.
“I feel like we stayed the course, stayed on the same page throughout the whole 40 minutes,” Thornton said. “I’m just proud of the guys tonight.”
When Nebraska beat Indiana by 16 points after Ohio State’s win against Rutgers, it concluded the 17th game between Big Ten teams this season. Those games have been decided by an average of 10.6 points with Illinois claiming the most lopsided victory in a 96-66 home blowout against Northwestern on Tuesday.
In those 17 games, 10 have had more than a double-digit difference between the biggest lead of the game and the final margin. Ohio State’s three-point loss at Penn State isn’t the biggest in-game differential to this point of the season; that dubious honor goes to Nebraska, which led 39-22 at Minnesota with 1:13 left in the first half but took a 76-65 loss on Dec. 6 for a 28-point swing.
Wisconsin, which hosts Nebraska on Saturday, has seen the slimmest margin between its largest lead and final margin of victory. The 2-0 Badgers beat Michigan State by 13 after leading by as many as 14 points on Dec. 5 and beat Iowa by 11 after leading by as many as 13 points Tuesday night. Wisconsin beat the Spartans on the road and the Hawkeyes at home. Just one Big Ten game has had both its biggest lead and final margin of victory in single digits: Indiana’s win at Michigan, 78-75, after leading by as many as seven points on Dec. 5. The Wolverines also led that game by six points with 8:59 left before faltering late.
On average, Big Ten games have featured a 11.1-point differential between the biggest lead and the final margin to this point. Ohio State’s three league games have featured an average margin of 15.3 points between the game’s biggest lead and final score.
Four Big Ten teams have overcome double-digit deficits to win league games so far this season. Six of the 17 games have not featured a lead change. Purdue is the only team with more than one game where it never trailed, and the Boilermakers have two.
“The 3-point shot, the shortened shot clock has really changed your ability to either come back or to lose a lead,” Holtmann said before the Rutgers game. “Teams are going to make shots when the momentum is behind them, but there are certainly things within your power, within your control as coaches and players that you feel like you can do and need to do to limit those runs.”
Those numbers don’t take into account a game like last Saturday’s win against West Virginia in Cleveland, where Ohio State led 24-10 with 7:59 left in the first half but needed to prevail 78-75 in overtime.
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When it comes to those critical moments in a game where a team is trying to hold onto a lead, Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell said it takes a number of things to successfully do so.
“You’ve got to get a couple calls going your way,” he said. “A couple open shots have to go in. You need a little bit of fortune. We had a couple open looks and from some of our best players that didn’t make it. You need all that. Whenever you’re on the road playing a game anyways, the cards are stacked against you. You’ve got to try to win by 10 to win by one.”
Or, frequently, a 10-point lead becomes a one-point win.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Here's how Ohio State stacks up with Big Ten teams when holding a lead
