Ohio State Basketball Loses Shooting Touch In Second Half, Losing To Illinois On The Road

The Ohio State Basketball team went against Champaign, Illinois, who was running on a three-game-winning row as it faced Illini in a Big Ten Road competition on Sunday. Buckeyes competed and shot the ball well in the first half, but could not keep the same efforts going in the second half on the way to a loss of 87-79.

Buckeyes came out of the gate hot behind 19 first half-point points from Devin Royal and took a 42-36 lead into the break. Ohio State began the other half well enough, but then had a hard time stopping an Illinois team who decided to start running basketball to the brace instead of setting down for external three-point attempts. The result was an important lack of scoring in the paint and the disadvantage of a decided free thrown. Illinois scored 52 against Ohio State’s 38 points on the block and spiked 23-of-31 free throw to Buckeyes ’14-of-15. Illini also exceeded OSU by a margin of 43 to 31.

Amazingly, Ohio State had 15 more shooting attempts (73 to 58), but still lost competition due to extremely poor shooting in the second half, resulting in 37% from the floor to the game.

Royal led Buckeyes in the scoring and poured 29 points on 10-of-18 shooting, including 3-of-6 from three-point range. Bruce Thornton (22) and John Mobley Jr. (18) Also ended in double, but they took a large number of shots to get to this brand.

With the loss, Ohio State falls under .500 in the Big Ten at 5-6, and Buckeyes falls to 13-9 overall. This team is still in the bubble area as the rear end of the conference season gets started. Scarlet and Gray will next be in action at home against Maryland on Thursday.

This article originally appeared on Buckeyes Wire: Ohio State Basketball Drops Road Contest to Illinois on the Road