Roddy Gayle Jr. had 14 points and five rebounds while Bruce Thornton tallied 11 points, six assists and five rebounds as visiting Ohio State trounced Rutgers 73-51 on Sunday in Piscataway, N.J.
Jamison Battle scored 10 points and Felix Okpara paired 10 points with eight rebounds for Ohio State (19-12, 9-11 Big Ten), which finished the regular season 5-1 under interim head coach Jake Diebler.
Ohio State has won four straight games and Rutgers has lost three in a row.
The Buckeyes on Sunday shot 50 percent from the floor overall and 57.7 percent in the second half, when they outscored the Scarlet Knights 43-23 to break open the game.
Rutgers (15-16, 7-13) missed its first 11 shots from the floor, clawed back to within two by halftime, and then experienced a 9:48 field-goal drought in the second half before finishing the game 27.3 percent from the field.
Aundre Hyatt led Rutgers with 11 points. Cliff Omoruyi had 10 points and seven rebounds but fouled out of his Senior Day game with 7:22 to play.
Battle and Gayle made 3-pointers to get Ohio State started in the game, and the Buckeyes opened an 11-1 lead. Omoruyi committed two fouls in the first three minutes and subbed out for an extended stretch.
It was the 12:32 mark of the half when one of Omoruyi’s backups, Emmanuel Ogbole, made Rutgers’ first field goal on a two-handed slam. He had a second dunk two minutes later, and Hyatt scored five straight points to cut his team’s deficit to 16-12.
Ohio State made it a 10-point game again on Okpara’s lay-in. But the Scarlet Knights ended the half on an 8-1 sprint, Hyatt’s putback bringing them within 30-28 at halftime.
Jamichael Davis’ steal in the backcourt and one-handed dunk cut Rutgers’ deficit to 36-32 with 16:48 to play.
Omoruyi added a free throw before the Buckeyes scored the next eight points — a triple by Battle and a fastbreak layup and an open corner 3 by Gayle — for Ohio State to go ahead by 11 with 14:04 left.
Things finally unraveled for the hosts, who missed their next nine attempts from the floor while Ohio State burned them at the other end. Thornton and Scotty Middleton knocked down 3-pointers to conclude a 16-2 stretch that made it 52-35 at the 9:09 mark.
Devin Royal had a dunk and a jumper for Ohio State’s first lead of 20 or more at 58-37 before Jeremiah Williams’ three-point play ended Rutgers’ field-goal drought.
Ohio State tacked on a 10-0 run in the final minutes to lead by as many as 27.
–Field Level Media
