COLUMBUS, Ohio –– When Ohio State defeated Michigan State 79-62 in the teams’ first meeting this season, the Jan. 31 win snapped the Buckeyes’ four-game losing streak to the Spartans, and also served as the largest Ohio State margin of victory against Michigan State since 1987.
History is on the line once again for the Buckeyes in their rematch with the Spartans in East Lansing, Michigan, on Thursday night, as Ohio State will have the chance to do something it hasn’t done in well over a decade.
The last Buckeye team to sweep Michigan State in a two-game regular season series was the 2006-07 iteration, led by head coach Thad Matta and three first round NBA Draft picks in Greg Oden, Mike Conley and Daequan Cook.
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Not only did the 06-07 Buckeyes not lose to Drew Neitzel’s Spartans in either regular season matchup that year, but they only lost one game to any Big Ten opponent at all; including the conference tournament.
Ohio State was both the regular season and tournament champ in the Big Ten, dropping only to then-No. 3 Wisconsin by a three-point margin in a loss that the Buckeyes avenged in the conference championship game.
Oden and company went all the way to the national championship game before losing to Florida by nine points that year, but Chris Holtmann’s current team still has plenty of work to do before coming close to that achievement.
The task at hand is a second-straight win against Tom Izzo, something Holtmann still has yet to do despite six total encounters between him and Michigan State during his four seasons with the Buckeyes.
The last time Ohio State beat Michigan State twice in the same season, including postseason play, was the 2012-13 season, when the Aaron Craft and Deshaun Thomas-led Buckeyes got the best of Gary Harris and MSU in the late regular season rematch as well as the conference tournament semifinal.
However, the Spartans knocked off Ohio State in the first regular season meeting that year in a tight 59-56 win despite 28 points from Thomas, which negated the possibility of a season sweep for the Buckeyes.
Holtmann’s first Buckeye team technically “swept” the series in 2017-18 with a blowout upset over the then-No. 1-ranked Spartans in Columbus, but that was the lone matchup between the two teams that season.
The Buckeyes went on to lose to Michigan State in each subsequent matchup until the one that took place a little over three weeks ago, and even after Michigan State’s stunner of an upset win over No. 5 Illinois on Tuesday, Ohio State will surely be favored to beat the Big Ten’s 10th-place Spartans once again on Thursday.
Michigan State is 4-3 since its last meeting with the Buckeyes, and averaging 69 points per game as a team while the Buckeyes have been red-hot on offense with an average of nearly 84 points a night over the same stretch, even after taking their first loss in over a month in the last outing.
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No game is guaranteed in this year’s Big Ten conference though, and with Ohio State’s penchant for playing in close games this season, it may just take the Buckeyes’ best effort in order to make history against Michigan State again on Thursday.
