COLUMBUS, Ohio – Longtime IUPUI Head Coach
Ron Hunter knew it’d take a perfect game for his Jaguars to upset No. 2/2 Ohio State inside Value City Arena on Thursday night – and he nearly got it. The Jaguars pushed the Buckeyes to the brink, but faded late, as Ohio State claimed a 75-64 win in front of 11,410 fans.
Junior
Alex Young led three Jaguars in double-digits with 20 points and senior
Leroy Nobles tossed in 16, but defensively, IUPUI (4-6) had no answer for 6-foot-8 freshman wrecking ball Jared Sullinger. The 280-pound former McDonald’s All-American finished with 40 points and 13 boards and hit 16-of-23 from the free throw line, becoming the first Buckeye to score 40 in a game since 1986.
“I told our kids, we won’t see anyone like that in our league. He's good,” Hunter said. “We thought they were a great shooting team, so we wanted to stay in the game by not letting them make threes. You can’t take everything away from a great team though.”
At any rate, the upset minded Jaguars led 50-41 with 12:40 to play when senior
John Ashworth tossed in a contested three from the left wing in front of his team’s bench. OSU (7-0) countered with a 24-4 run though, including 11 straight to take a 52-50 lead with 8:37 left.
Young re-tied the score at 52 all with a driving layup, but Sullinger put the Bucks back on top with a layup of his own. IUPUI freshman
Donovan Gibbs rattled home a 16-footer on the Jaguars’ next possession, but Ohio State scored the next 11 points, keyed by a Jon Diebler three and six straight from Sullinger.
Sullinger capped his 40-point night with a dunk with under a minute to play, helping set the final margin.
“We just got tired,” Hunter said. “We were basically playing media timeout to media timeout. Then at eight minutes, we still had the lead, but I looked in their eyes and could see they were tired.
“My guys fought, but just ran out of gas. Ohio State did what they had to do to beat us. They are a very good basketball team, especially in this building."
Gibbs gave the Jaguars life off the bench, hitting 5-of-6 shots to account for his career-high 12 points. It was much needed because junior
Christian Siakam fouled out with eight points in just 13 minutes work, primarily guarding Sullinger.
“This is the first time we played the freshman at the five,” Hunter said. “Mainly because we didn’t think their bigs could guard him out on the floor. We needed him today with Christian in foul trouble and he came up big for us.”
The Jaguars seemed comfortable playing the role of spoiler from the outset, surging out to an early 7-3 lead behind Siakam’s tip-in on the opening possession, a Young wing three and a fastbreak layup from Nobles. Even after a 9-2 OSU run put the Buckeyes up 26-21 with 8:11 left in the half, IUPUI refused to go away.
Coming off his worst scoring game of the season, Young showed off his offensive arsenal in the first half with a mix of long-range bombs and a pair of tough jumpers inside the arc. Young fed Nobles for the final bucket of the first half on a sideline inbounds, making it 35-35 at the break.
“Alex was really good today and got us going offensively,” Hunter said. “When he makes shots and plays with confidence, we’re a tough, tough basketball team. They did a better job on him in the second half, but by then, he had already brought everyone’s confidence up around him.”
Both teams finished the game hitting an identical 51 percent from the floor, but OSU outscored the Jaguars 18-4 at the charity stripe. It was just the fourth time in 10 games that IUPUI had been outscored at the foul line.
William Buford finished with 14 points for the victors and Diebler added 13, including three threes.
Young hit 8-of-18 from the floor and a season-high four threes in eight attempts. He also matched his career-high with six assists against five turnovers in a full 40 minutes. Nobles grabbed a team-high five boards and Ashworth finished with four rebounds and four assists.
The loss dropped IUPUI to 0-10 all-time against nationally ranked opponents and 0-2 all-time against Ohio State. The 11-point margin of defeat was the slimmest margin against a ranked opponent since losing to No. 20 Arizona State 59-58 in overtime in December 2008.
IUPUI’s run of six straight games away from home will continue on Sunday when the Jaguars take on Ohio University in Athens, Ohio at 2:00 p.m..
