Following Thursday night’s 78-69 win over Nebraska at Value City Arena, Ohio State will close out their home schedule today when they host the Michigan Wolverines. Not only will the Buckeyes be celebrating seniors Jamison Battle, Dale Bonner, Zed Key, and Owen Spencer, but Jake Diebler’s team will be looking to keep their slim NCAA Tournament hopes alive. After their win over the Cornhuskers, Ohio State has now won three of four games since moving on from head coach Chris Holtmann on Valentine’s Day. If the Buckeyes want to make the tournament, they’ll not only have to beat the Wolverines today and Rutgers next Sunday, they’ll need a strong showing in this year’s Big Ten Tournament.
After their thrilling win last Sunday at Michigan State, Ohio State was able to keep the momentum going on Thursday with a victory over Nebraska, avenging the loss to the Cornhuskers earlier this year in Lincoln. Much like the game against the Spartans when they were without Jamison Battle, the Buckeyes were missing one of their key players on Thursday night when Bruce Thornton wasn’t available to play because of a migraine.
With Thornton sidelined, Dale Bonner saw more playing time, finishing with 33 minutes played, marking just the second time this year he has been on the floor for more than 30 minutes in a game, with the first coming in the double-overtime win against Maryland.
While Thornton wasn’t able to play on Thursday, Ohio State was able to welcome Jamison Battle back to the lineup after he missed the Michigan State game. The transfer from Minnesota didn’t take long to find his shot, hitting his first three three-point attempts on his way to a season-high 32 points. Along with his three-point shooting,
Battle also hit all 10 of his free throw attempts and has now hit 50 of his last 51 free throws. As a team, Ohio State was 24 of 28 from the foul line, while Nebraska shot just eight free throws.
Jamison Battle wasn’t the only Buckeye to come up big in Thornton’s absence. Roddy Gayle Jr. recorded the first double-double of his college career, finishing with 16 points and 10 rebounds. With his scoring output on Thursday night, Gayle is just one point shy of 400 points this season.
The sophomore from Niagara Falls is the third-leading scorer for Ohio State this year, averaging 13.8 points per game, which is only topped by Thornton and Battle. Gayle’s double-double was the fourth of the year by an Ohio State player, with Zed Key notching the first three double-doubles this season.
A huge reason why Ohio State was able to earn the victory on Thursday night was their play before and after halftime. Not only did the Buckeyes end the first half on a 12-3 run to head into the break with a 39-37 lead, they opened up the second half with a 7-0 run to push their lead to 46-37. While Nebraska was able to crawl back within a bucket on a number of occasions, Ohio State wouldn’t trail in the game after halftime.
After splitting the regular season series with Nebraska, now Ohio State will be looking to do the same with Michigan, who beat the Buckeyes 73-65 in Ann Arbor back in January. Even though Ohio State was able to take the lead in the second half after going on a 16-0 run, the Buckeyes couldn’t make the edge stick. The result might have been different had Ohio State not struggled so much from behind the arc, going just 3-25 from three-point range in the loss. Jamison Battle struggled mightily against the Wolverines, hitting just one of his eight three-point attempts on his way to finishing with five points in the game. Bruce Thornton led Ohio State with 19 points in the matinee on Martin Luther King Day.
Entering today’s contest, Ohio State holds a 101-82 advantage in the all-time series. Lately, the rivalry has been back-and-forth, as the schools have split the last 16 meetings. The score differential proves just how tight those 16 games have been, with the Buckeyes scoring 1,089 points in those games, while Michigan has scored 1,083. If Ohio State is able to win today, it will snap a three-game losing streak to the Wolverines.
Like Ohio State, Michigan also played on Thursday night. The Wolverines hit the road to take on Rutgers and were demolished by the Scarlet Knights 82-52. The loss was the sixth straight setback for Juwan Howard’s team. Dug McDaniel scored a team-high 13 points in the game, while Tarris Reed Jr. was the only other Michigan player to reach double figures in scoring, finishing with 12 points. Terrance Williams II added nine points and six rebounds in the loss.
In the first meeting with Ohio State, Olivier Nkamhoua led the Wolverines with 20 points in the victory back in January. Unfortunately for Michigan, Nkamhoua won’t be available to play the rest of the season after the transfer from Tennessee underwent wrist surgery a couple of weeks ago. Before suffering the injury, Nkamhoua was the team’s second-leading scorer, with his 14.8 points per game only topped by the 16.5 points per game Dug McDaniel is averaging. Nkamhoua was also a force on the glass, averaging 7.1 rebounds per contest.
With Nkamhoua on the shelf, Will Tschetter has moved into the Michigan starting lineup. In their January meeting, Tschetter scored seven points in 15 minutes off the bench. Along with Tschetter, expect Juwan Howard to start Terrance Williams II and Tarris Reed Jr. in the frontcourt, while Nimari Burnett will join Dug McDaniel at the guard positions. This will mark just the second road game McDaniel will be eligible to play in after serving a six-game suspension which consisted of only road games after he was found not to meet the school’s academic standards.
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Unless the teams meet in the Big Ten Tournament, this will likely be the last time Juwan Howard leads Michigan into battle against Ohio State. After a bright start to his coaching career that saw Howard lead the Wolverines to the Elite Eight in his second year in charge of his alma mater, results haven’t met expectations since, as Michigan has lost at least 15 games in each of the last three years. After missing the first 10 games of this season due to heart surgery, the Wolverines are just 3-16 with Howard on the bench.
Ohio State has been rejuvenated after the firing of head coach Chris Holtmann, winning three of four games under interim head coach Jake Diebler. Not only did the Buckeyes earn their first road victory in over a calendar year last Sunday, but they have won their last two games while missing a key player in each contest. Unless something unforeseen happens prior to the game, expect Ohio State to have Bruce Thornton back in the lineup for the final regular season home game for the Buckeyes.
As if Senior Day festivities and a game against their rivals weren’t enough to get up for, the Buckeyes still have an outside chance at making the NCAA Tournament. The road to the Big Dance isn’t going to be easy, but if Ohio State can win their final two games of the regular season, followed by string together a few wins in the Big Ten Tournament, it’s not crazy to think the team could miraculously make the tournament after looking dead in the water last month. To keep hope alive, beating Michigan today is imperative.
With so much at stake for the Buckeyes, it’s hard to see them laying an egg against their rival today, especially with how awful the Wolverines have been playing lately. Not only will this be the final home game for Battle, Bonner, Key, and Spencer, but it could be the final time some other Buckeyes wear the scarlet and gray in Columbus since there could be massive roster changes with a new head coach coming in for next season. All signs point to Ohio State beating a Michigan team that can’t wait for the season to end.
ESPN BPI: Ohio State 86.8%
Time: 4 p.m. ET
TV: CBS
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris will attend a church service in Detroit and rally young voters at Michigan State University as part of a campaign swing through Michigan on Sunday.
Two days before Tuesday’s presidential election, Harris is planning to make four stops in Michigan, according to a senior campaign official who declined to be identified in order to provide information on the yet-to-be-announced details of the trip.
The Democratic nominee will speak at a church and visit a restaurant in Detroit, a Democratic stronghold and the state’s largest city. Harris also will stop in Pontiac before the evening event in East Lansing, where MSU is located, the official said.
Harris held a large rally at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Monday night.
Turning out college students in East Lansing and Ann Arbor could be key to Harris’ hopes of winning Michigan. Also, East Lansing is located in the hotly contested 7th Congressional District, where former state Sens. Curtis Hertel, an East Lansing Democrat, and Tom Barrett, a Charlotte Republican, are vying for an open seat in the U.S. House.
Harris is locked in a competitive race for Michigan’s 15 electoral votes with Republican former President Donald Trump. Michigan is one of seven battleground states that are expected to decide whether Harris or Trump leads the country for the next four years.
Trump is visiting Michigan on Friday and will hold a rally at Macomb Community College in Warren.
A late October poll of 600 likely Michigan voters, commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4), found Harris was beating Trump by 3 percentage points, 46.7%-43.7%, with 7.3% of the participants saying they planned to vote for a third-party candidate. Another 2.1% said they were undecided.
The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Four years ago, Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump in Michigan by 154,188 votes or 3 percentage points, 51%-48%.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
We desperately need rain in Michigan. By the end of the weekend we will get into a three-day rainy period.
We start the weekend very cold Saturday morning compared to these past few days. Many of us will drop to near freezing or below at sunrise.
Saturday will be a dry day with light winds and cool temperatures in the normal range.
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MSU football: Video analysis of the Spartans’ 24-17 loss at Michigan
Lansing State Journal columnist Graham Couch and Detroit Free Press MSU beat writer Chris Solari break down the Spartans’ 24-17 loss at Michigan.
EAST LANSING — The loss to Michigan cost Michigan State football one of its best defensive players for 45 minutes of football
It’s an inopportune loss at an unfortunate moment — with No. 13 Indiana’s high-powered offense up next.
Linebacker Jordan Turner will miss the first half of Saturday’s game against the Hoosiers (3:30 p.m., Peacock), leaving the Spartans without their leading tackler in the heart of their vastly improved and swarming defense.
“Very unfortunate. A little bit of a crazy call, in my opinion,” fellow linebacker Jordan Hall said Wednesday. “But we gotta keep pushing on, keep moving on. We’ll miss him in the first half, but we’re going to keep preparing out through the week and get ready for him to contribute like he always does in the second half.”
On the final play of the third quarter in Saturday’s 24-17 loss to the Wolverines, Turner crashed down as U-M’s Alex Orji took a shotgun snap and faked a handoff. Turner met Orji in the hole, with the running quarterback spinning off the initial contact for a 3-yard gain.
During the TV timeout between the quarters, replay officials reviewed the hit and cited Turner for a targeting penalty. He was ejected from the game, missing the final 15 minutes. U-M scored four plays later, with running back Donovan Edwards throwing a 23-yard touchdown pass to tight end Colson Loveland as the Spartans’ linebackers and safeties overplayed the run with Turner out of the game.
“We practice making the right form tackles, so it’s not something that I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m going into a tackle,000 like, I need to keep my head up.’ It’s just something that we practice and it becomes routine,” Hall said. “Sometimes in the heat of the moment, depending on the angles and whatnot, stuff happens. Which I think happened in JT’s case in the slightest bit.”
MSU coach Jonathan Smith on Monday said the school challenged the call to the Big Ten after the game, and league officials denied MSU’s appeal. Turner will be eligible to play in the second half for the Spartans (4-4, 2-3 Big Ten) against the Hoosiers (8-0, 5-0), per NCAA targeting rules.
That likely will move Hall, a sophomore, into Turner’s spot next to Cal Haladay in the middle of Joe Rossi’s defense, which held U-M leading rusher Kalel Mullings to just 18 yards on 13 carries Saturday and limited Iowa star Kaleb Johnson to 98 yards (75 of which came on one late touchdown run) on 14 attempts in an win a week earlier. It also will expand the already-growing role of senior Darius Snow and Wayne Matthews III.
Turner leads the Spartans with 48 tackles, with five of them coming in Saturday’s game at U-M. The 6-foot-1, 231-pound fifth-year senior, who transferred to MSU from Wisconsin in the offseason, also has three sacks, an interception and two QB hurries.
“He’s really important. Obviously, you’ve seen the plays that he’s made,” Snow said of Turner. “He’s not just a good football player, but he’s a great leader and vocal. We’re just gonna have to play, and we’ll get him back in the second half, which is cool. But I have confidence in Jordan Hall, I think he’s a great player.”
MSU ranks 45th in the nation in run defense, allowing 129.6 yards on the ground, and is tied for 23rd nationally in giving up 315.9 yards per game. The Spartans will try to continue that trend against Indiana’s high-powered offense that ranks sixth in the nation in total offense (487.6 yards), 24th in rushing yards (200.6) and second in the Football Subdivision in scoring (46.5 points)
Hoosiers starting quarterback Kurtis Rourke suffered a thumb injury on his throwing hand during a game two weeks ago and sat out Saturday’s 31-17 home win over Washington. Rourke had surgery last Monday but, according to ESPN, the Ohio University transfer is expected to try and play against the Spartans.
Backup Tayven Jackson was 11-for-19 for 124 yards with an interception along with passing and rushing TDs against the Huskies, while running back Justice Ellison, a Wake Forest transfer, ran 29 times for 123 yards and a score.
“The only thing I know is they’re going to have a quarterback,” MSU secondary coach Blue Adams said Wednesday. “My approach is the guy that they put in is going to be the guy to give them the best chance of winning. And I think in college football, especially at the level that we we play on, I think every quarterback is a legitimate quarterback. They can throw the ball well, and they can call plays and manage the game well.
“So the only thing I can kind of prepare for is that dude is going to be a good player, and so we kind of attack it that way.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
Subscribe to the “Spartan Speak” podcast for new episodes weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts.
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