As Ohio State’s Brent Darby eased to the foul line with 23 seconds left in Wednesday’s game, he gave the Wild Side a little wave. The Northwestern students greeted him with a gesture of their own.
The senior had two shots to extend the Buckeyes’ 3-point lead, but he clanked both attempts.
The Wildcats had been given one last chance to provide a happy send-off for their three seniors. But Aaron Jennings overthrew Winston Blake on a cut through the lane, and the Cats had to swallow a 52-48 loss.
“We had a special play drawn up,” Blake said. “It was supposed to be a (3-pointer) for me if they ran the zone, but they didn’t.”
As a result, the Cats were forced to ad-lib. Blake said he wasn’t even expecting the pass Jennings sent to the Ladycats dancers.
“The team feels bad, I feel bad, we all feed bad,” NU coach Bill Carmody said. “It was a winnable game and we didn’t cut it.”
Jennings’ improvisation was forced by Ohio State coach Jim O’Brien’s strategy of flipping between man-to-man and zone defenses.
“Northwestern is so pattern oriented, and they get into such a rhythm when they face a man or zone (defense),” O’Brien said. “You have to break that rhythm and our changing (defenses) got them out of it.”
The Cats jumped out to a 20-9 lead facing the Buckeyes’ 2-3 zone by nailing five of their first seven attempts from beyond the arc. Blake hit three of his four treys during the run en route to a team-high 12 points.
“It was good to hit that first 3,” Blake said. “Then it certainly felt good when the second one fell. It just gets everything going when you start off well.”
After junior Jitim Young drained NU’s fifth trey, O’Brien called a timeout with 8:13 left in the half. O’Brien switched to a man-to-man scheme, and the Buckeyes held the Cats scoreless for the rest of the half.
“When they’re in that zone you get stagnant and lose movement, you’re just kind of standing around,” Blake said. “Then they go man (defense) once you’re in that zone frame, that switch hurt us. We should’ve handled it a lot better.”
NU’s drought continued after the break. By the time senior Jason Burke hit a trey, the Cats had gone 9:37 without scoring.
Ohio State continued changing defensive schemes throughout the second half and held NU to 29.8 percent shooting for the game. NU’s 48 points were the fewest of the season.
Ohio State had more boards (49) than NU had points. That rebounding total marks the highest of an NU opponent this year. The Buckeyes had as many offensive rebounds, as the Cats had defensive (22).
Despite poor second-half shooting and being man-handled on the glass, NU held a 38-31 edge with less than 10 minutes to play.
But Darby woke up after a poor first half — two points on 1 of 8 shooting — by nailing a trey and two pull-up jumpers on three consecutive possessions to give Ohio State a 44-40 lead it would never relinquish. Darby scored 15 of his game-high 17 points in the second half.
After missing the two free throws following his exchange with the Wild Side, Darby, an 85 percent free-throw shooter, connected on three foul shots in the final 10 seconds to ice the game.
“The crowd was on me all game,” Darby said. “I struggled early, so it felt good to put it away.”
With the win Ohio State moved to eighth place in the Big Ten Tournament, set to begin March 13. NU has clinched the No. 10 seed.
