Buckeyes sizzle early in win over Hoosiers

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

After starting slow at times this season, No. 17 Ohio State didn’t waste time jumping all over Indiana on Tuesday night.

Indiana’s Zach McRoberts hit two quick shots, one of them a 3-pointer, in the first 1:14 to put the Hoosiers up by one, but Ohio State reeled off a 10-0 run and didn’t relinquish the lead again in a 71-56 victory for the Buckeyes.

“I think they set the tone early with their physicality on both ends of the floor and knocked us on our heels pretty quick,” Indiana coach Archie Miller said. “And we were working uphill from there most of the night.”

Jae’Sean Tate had 16 points as Ohio State (19-5, 10-1 Big Ten) bounced back strong from last week’s buzzer-beater loss to Penn State that dropped them three places in the AP Top 25 poll and out of a tie with Purdue for first place in the conference.

Kaleb Wesson added 14 points and Keita Bates-Diop had 13 points and 13 rebounds for Ohio State.

Devonte Green scored 20 for the Hoosiers (12-11, 5-6), who have lost three in a row and four of five. Indiana, playing its fourth game in eight days including an emotional loss to rival Purdue on Sunday, shot just 36.4 percent from the floor after hitting better than 50 percent in the past three games.

They had trouble stopping the 6-foot-9, 270-pound Wesson when he went to the basket in the lane. The fact that their most effective post player, 6-foot-10 De’Ron Davis, is sidelined with an injury was a glaring factor.

“We had no answer for the big fella,” Miller said. “It’s killing us right now inside. We’re getting paralyzed just in terms of sheer size of certain guys, and I thought Kaleb did a really good job tonight for them.”

Ohio State shot 55.8 percent, with 40 of its points coming in the paint.

“I think we did a good job getting back on track tonight,” Tate said. “You see it all the time where teams take one loss, and it becomes another loss and another loss. I think our mindset and our approach really went back to what it was when we got on that [winning] stretch back at the beginning. We had to remind ourselves to play with that chip and play with that energy.”