Buckeyes' first half run ultimately buries Gophers' comeback chances
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MINNEAPOLIS -- It took only 10 minutes for the crowd at Williams Arena to fall silent.
Ohio State guard William Buford, who finished with a game-high 24 points, kick-started a crucial 20-0 run midway through the first half that put the sixth-ranked Buckeyes in position to keep the Gophers at bay, dropping the home team to a 78-68 defeat on Tuesday night.
Outmatched and occasionally overwhelmed, the Gophers failed to sustain a rally, which ultimately sent them to their eighth loss in Big Ten play (17-9, 5-8).
"I really expect a lot more out of our guys. I didn't see it tonight. I didn't see it," coach Tubby Smith said.
Sporadic scoring bursts kept the Gophers from falling out of contention, with the deficit cut to as low as eight points in the second half. But the Buckeyes, helped by sophomore standout Jared Sullinger's 23 points, withstood all potential momentum swings to level a confidence-shaking blow to their opponent.
"I don't think any of us know why we do that. It just sort of happens," forward Rodney Williams said, addressing the Gophers' habit of starting slow. "We fight back, but we can't dig ourselves into holes at the beginning of games, especially a 21-point hole."
Driven by a career-high 21 points, Williams tried to spur a comeback akin to the Gophers' rally last week against Wisconsin. "U" forward Oto Osenieks provided a surprising spark with 10 points from off the bench.
However, the momentum surge created by Osenieks and Williams didn't carry through to the rest of the team. Take away Osenieks' output and the Gophers' reserves were left with four total points.
"I'm really disappointed with that," Smith said of the lack of production from his bench. "It was disturbing, because they had been playing pretty well."
The skinny
Buford couldn't be stopped in the early goings. The senior guard connected on four straight shots, including two of his four 3-pointers, before missing from long-range more than 10 minutes into the game.
"U" guard Andre Hollins -- in the starting line-up for the first time since early December -- drained a 3-pointer to pull his squad into a 12-12 draw at the 14:28 mark in the first half.
The Gophers wouldn't score until almost eight minutes later.
Unfortunately for them, the drought coincided with Ohio State's strongest stretch of the game. Sullinger followed suit with Buford as the pair launched the Buckeyes to 20 unanswered points and an eventual 37-16 lead.
It was a chain of events the "U" never truly recovered from.
An Ohio State rout was seemingly in full swing, but the Gophers steadied themselves in the closing minutes of the first half. Osenieks and Williams scored 11 points of their team's 16 points before halftime, bringing the score to 40-28.
"Our spirits were definitely up after we made that run... But it was that 20-0 run that killed us," Williams said.
To a certain degree, the Buckeyes cooled off in the second half -- outscored 40-38 in the last 20 minutes. The Gophers made attempts at cutting further into the lead, though they were unable to ever put Ohio State on the brink of completely relenting control.
Numbers game
9: Assists tallied by Julian Welch -- both a career and Gophers season-high.
0: Games prior to Tuesday in which Osenieks had recorded double-digit scoring numbers.
"Oto played great. We definitely needed someone to come in and give us energy and he did exactly that," Welch said.
8: Combined points scored by Williams (4), Welch (2) and Ralph Sampson III (2) in the first half, going 3-of-6 from the floor.
26: Points tallied by Williams and Welch in the second half, while Sampson -- limited to 12 total minutes, partially a result of early foul trouble -- ended the night with four.
4: Losses for the Gophers at home this season (Iowa, 64-62; Purdue, 79-66; Wisconsin 68-61; Ohio State, 78-68) -- one shy of their total from their 2010-11 campaign.
14: Turnovers committed by the Gophers.
Overheard
"Not after this performance. If we play like this we're going to get beat ... I thought we could be better than this and that's what's disappointing."
-- Smith, when asked if his team can take solace in its second-half push against the Buckeyes.
Coming up
The Gophers have backed themselves into a corner. They need a strong finish in their final five games of the regular season if they have any chance at persuading the NCAA tournament committee to grant them a bid.
A victory in Saturday's road match-up against Northwestern has become practically a must. The "U" dismantled the Wildcats 75-52 in their previous meeting on Jan. 22, which stands as the team's best start-to-finish victory of the season.
