When Ohio State lost to Michigan State on Thursday, it was the first time the Buckeyes have dropped two games in a row all season.

It's not exactly an opportune time for a skid either, as Ohio State is grappling for final conference tournament seeding and looking to impress the NCAA selection committee before heading into postseason play.

The Buckeyes must right the ship quickly if they hope to avoid going 0-4 in the final regular season stretch, with two top 10 teams on the horizon to close out the schedule. But first, head coach Chris Holtmann and company must identify what has gone wrong in the past two contests.

Not all factors were the same across both defeats, but there are certainly several common threads to investigate and potentially remedy. We've broken down five of them below ahead of Sunday's matchup with Iowa.

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