For just the ninth time in NCAA Tournament history, a No. 15 seed took down a No. 2 in the round of 68 when Summit League champs Oral Roberts took out Ohio State 75-72 in overtime. This was also the first time such upset since 2016 when Middle Tennessee State hit pretty much everything from the field to shock the No. 2 rated Michigan State Spartans.
That was hardly the case though this time around though for the latest Big Ten powerhouse to suffer an embarrassing early exit as the Golden Eagles had just a 36 percent field goal percentage and were pretty much dominated in the paint by a more talented Buckeyes squad. In fact, Oral Roberts — who had an opportunity to set the record for division one free throw percentage (82.18 percent set by Harvard in 1984) were 14/18 Friday afternoon sliding down to 82.17 percent.
So what went wrong for the Buckeyes?
Aside from Max Abamas and Kevin Obanor completely carrying the Golden Eagles and Ohio State having zero luck containing the two Oral Roberts stars, the Buckeyes turned the ball over a total of 16 times.
As a result, the Golden Eagles secured 14 points off of the turnovers which there in of itself is your game.
That’s not to say Ohio State shouldn’t have been a good enough team to overcome a shitty line like that. It’s something they undoubtedly should have been able to overcome, especially when you’re facing a team who shot just 36 percent from the field. Unfortunately though for the Buckeyes, they weren’t much better with a 43 percent field goal percentage while hitting just half of their free throws (9/18) and being just complete godawful from beyond the arc at 22 percent (5/23).
Oral Roberts now moves on to play Florida while Ohio State lives with some unwanted history.
