WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Chris Holtmann thought Eugene Brown III was there.

Purdue senior guard Eric Hunter Jr. took the inbound and the clock ticked down in a tie game. Ohio State set up defensively and played for its life, as it did in the final 14 minutes of Sunday afternoon.

The ball wasn’t supposed to go to Jaden Ivey. Sophomore center Zach Edey was right on the other side, waiting for his pass, which the guard stepped right in front of, taking two steps back, his momentum wavering back toward the Purdue bench, and fired a shot against which Holtmann felt Brown defended well enough.

The ball sunk through, and that was it.

Pandemonium struck.

Purdue did what Purdue was expected to do: win. But it wasn’t supposed to be like that.

There was a point where the distance of 10 spots between the Boilermakers and the Buckeyes in the latest AP Poll seemed insurmountable, with the home team — a national title contender — held a 20-point lead against a conference team doing everything it could just to try and keep up.

Welcome to Ohio State basketball: where a 20-point deficit can evaporate with a 46-29 run over the final 14 minutes of a game.

Ohio State fights, plain and simple.

It plays up when it needs to play up, whether it’s against the No. 1 team in the country or the No. 1 team in the Big Ten, wrestling through trial and tribulation — from COVID-19 stoppages to injuries — to stay in games, to fight to the end.

That’s not good enough for E.J. Liddell, standing outside of Purdue’s visitor’s locker room after a three-point loss.

There were no moral victories here, no emphasis on how close it was or how the Buckeyes fought to battle back.

That was something Liddell knew Ohio State could do. He’s seen it before.

He was wondering why it didn’t happen sooner.

“We have to go back to the drawing board, honestly, looking at the mistakes we could have made, the mistakes we did make and just move on to the next game,” Liddell said.

Just like the high points and low points of Ohio State’s 2021-22 season, Liddell was in the middle of all of it.

The junior forward hit back-to-back 3-pointers in the span of nine seconds, the second coming off a steal by redshirt senior forward Kyle Young, scrambling for the ball and pushing it outside to the top of the 3-point line for a wide-open look, playing with poise and confidence even through the rush of adrenaline.

But those were Liddell’s only two 3-point makes of the day, missing each of his first five from deep, unable to solve the size and the intensity of the swarming Purdue defense.

“I got to get myself out of the slump, honestly. It all comes down to me and making shots,” Liddell said. “I feel like they did a good job sending bodies at me, but it all comes back to me and being able to play with confidence and shoot with confidence.”

But resiliency still ruled the day, something that showed up against Akron with a late make by sophomore forward Zed Key, something that showed up against Seton Hall in the semifinal of the Fort Myers Tip Off with a buzzer-beating 3 by freshman guard Meechie Johnson Jr., something that secured Ohio State’s overtime road win against Nebraska.

Against Purdue, Holtmann saw a team in a spot it's been in before: getting to a place where Ohio State had no choice but to battle back, emphasizing aggressiveness in the huddle, pleading with his players for more force and physicality.

“I think at some point backs are to the wall, you are down like we are,” Holtmann said. “Those guys, they did it.”

Ohio State’s had its back against the wall before, and it will have its back against the wall again, even with seven of the final 11 games of the regular season to be played at home — a venue where it has not lost a game this season — with all but two games left in the regular season against teams below the Buckeyes in the Big Ten.

It’s a stretch that is set to define who this Ohio State team is, what its legacy will be moving forward.

In a building that saw the lowest moment for the Buckeyes in recent memory — the first-round loss to Oral Roberts in the first round of the NCAA Tournament — Ohio State tried to put itself back into its Cinderella dress in the final moments against the Boilermakers.

But that’s what Holtmann expects.

“I would have been very disappointed if we didn’t fight through the final buzzer. I’d have been devastated because that can’t be who we ever are,” Holtmann said.

Holtmann’s question with Ohio State isn’t if it will fight for a chance to come back. That mentality has been secured all season long.

Instead, it’s a question of whether the Buckeyes can be a team that dominates, if Ohio State can be a team that thrives and shines in games that don’t come into question in the final moments.

Liddell feels like that team showed up Sunday, allowing Ohio State to storm back, battle back, coming up just short on a prayer.

But that team showed up too late.