COLUMBUS, Ohio — After Ohio State’s first home loss in nearly a year, head coach Chris Holtmann called his wife.

She was in tears, he said, and he found himself consoling her: ‘“It’s fine. I’m going to be fine. We’ll fight another day. We’ll play better.’”

The world wasn’t coming to an end, Holtmann said.

What happened Saturday against Iowa was just life in the Big Ten conference, something that he and his players will have to learn from and move forward from in less than 48 hours with Indiana coming to Columbus Monday.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to learn from.

Tied at 49 heading into the final 13 minutes of Saturday’s matchup, Iowa guard Jordan Bohannon attempted a 3 near the end of the Hawkeyes’ shot clock, creating contact with Ohio state guard Jamari Wheeler — a move Holtmann initially viewed as a flop — leading to a whistle and a foul and a near technical by the Ohio State head coach.

It wasn’t the end of the game. Holtmann made it clear after the game that referees didn’t lead to Ohio State’s first home loss this season. But it was the deflating point, watching as Iowa used a 26-13 run the rest of the way, unable to find consistency offensively to match the pace and the length of the Hawkeyes.

It was an inability to secure 50/50 balls, loose balls, defensive rebounds. It was a distinct lack of physicality, something Iowa brought an ample amount of.

“They just came out and competed today,” junior forward E.J. Liddell said. “I feel like we came out and competed at times rather than the whole 40 minutes, and I feel like they played 40 minutes hard, and I feel like that’s an area we have to get better in, just putting together, maximizing every second we are out there as a team.”

But to Holtmann, the main and most glaring problem lies with the offense surrounding Liddell.

After Wheeler’s foul, Ohio State missed its next four attempts from the line over the course of the next eight minutes, scoring only four points on four makes from the free-throw line from forward Zed Key and guard Eugene Brown III.

It was the Hawkeyes’ length swarming Liddell. Instead of the one-on-one looks he got at Michigan last weekend, each time the junior forward touched the ball, he said there were always two or three defenders surrounding him, leading to three turnovers — his second straight game with three.

“They made me see crowds,” Liddell said, scoring 15 points on 46.2% shooting. “There were a lot of bodies every time I touched the ball.”

To Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery, that was the goal: showing the ultimate sign of respect for a player by never allowing an easy shot for him.

“We tried to keep the X on the O, which I think is important for him,” McCaffery said. “Give him a little bit of space, he’s a handful. I thought we fought him in the post, we made him make tough shots and he still scored, but they were tough shots. It’s what we wanted to do: keep the X on the O, make him make tough shots and try to keep him off the free-throw line.”

And Ohio State never really had an answer, especially down the stretch.

In the final 13 minutes, Liddell, Wheeler and freshman Malaki Branham, who scored 22 points for the Buckeyes Saturday afternoon, 20 of which came in the first 22:35 of the game, were the only Ohio State players to make a shot, shooting 25% from the field in that final stretch.

“We need more help from more guys offensively. We just do. We need more guys, we need to find ways as coaches to get more guys loose,” Holtmann said. “When E.J. has that amount of traffic around him, he probably could have gotten into his play a little bit quicker today, but all in all, we have to find ways to get more guys freed up.

“I think we have to have guys a little bit more ready to shoot than what they were. We need more offensive firepower from guys other than E.J. We just do.”

The lack of offensive firepower combined with the firepower of Keegan and Kris Murray for Iowa was the difference Saturday for Ohio State.

But Iowa was looking to respond too, coming off a five-point home loss to Michigan Thursday before taking on the Buckeyes on the road less than 48 hours later.

To McCaffery, it was all about the approach heading into Saturday.

“I think if you start going down the road where it’s an awful loss, everybody feels awful, it’s disrespectful to the team that just beat you,” McCaffery said. “Michigan’s really good. We fought them hard. We knew, 48 hours later, less than 48 hours, we’d be here. You can’t worry about it, you stay positive, connected, you stay focused and you take a business-like approach for putting the game plan together for this one.”

That’s where Holtmann’s mind was at when he talked to his wife after the game Saturday.

Yes, there are things to make up. But that’s life in Big Ten basketball: Ohio State now has less than 48 hours to respond.

“We’ll move forward,” Holtmann said.