COLUMBUS — It’s March, and Ohio State is playing much better basketball than it had over the previous two months.

That’s probably as much of a breath of fresh air as it is frustrating. How would things be different right now if the Buckeyes could have found this form at any point over the course of their 14 losses in 15 games from Jan. 5 to Feb. 23?

“Those will be thoughts I’ll have in the offseason,” head coach Chris Holtmann said. “Right now we’re focusing on the work and continuing to play well.”

Holtmann’s team backed up a strong performance in a win against Illinois over the weekend with a 73-62 win against No. 21 Maryland on Wednesday night. Both opponents had reasons to come in desperate, with NCAA Tournament seeding and, more importantly, a chance to play for a share of the Big Ten crown at stake. The Buckeyes were happy to play spoiler both times, turning in two of their better offenses performances of the season — six players scored in double figures on Wednesday — while making more winning plays and buckling down on defense in key moments.

Ohio State has felt like it’s been practicing well enough to win for weeks now, and yet the results in games have been elusive. Suddenly, that work is turning into wins.

“I think they’re in a really good mindset right now,” Holtmann said. “In some ways, as a coach, I think about how I could’ve gotten them in that better mindset earlier. We’re playing quality basketball, better possessions.”

With one regular season game left — a road trip to Michigan State — and then the Big Ten Tournament next week in Chicago, this reversal of fortune is almost assuredly too little, too late for a team that’s still four games below .500 and locked into 13th place in the conference standings. Or maybe it isn’t. There’s no sense in getting caught up in that just yet.

For now, the Buckeyes will take some small solace in ending their regular-season home slate with a couple of wins, and signs that the team is starting to gel a bit.

Dotting The Eyes has three points on the win against the Terrapins.

The construction of college basketball rosters is so weird now that it’s hard to figure what Senior Night means anymore. The Buckeyes honored three payers and their families before Wednesday’s game. All of them are transfers. One, Justice Sueing, has been here for four years (but only played two) while the others, Sean McNeil and Isaac Likelele, have been here for nine months.

What would the emotions be like for guys who have spent chunks, or the majority, of their college basketball careers somewhere else?

It turns out all three were able to channel those emotions into quality play, and they set the tone for the game. Ohio State raced out to a 14-point lead with 10 of those points coming from the senior trio.

Sueing, who’s been ice cold from deep this year, hit a clean three two minutes into the game that gave the Buckeyes a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. McNeil hit a three on the next possession and then talked some trash to the Maryland bench. Likelele scored on back-to-back possessions, first on a layup in transition and then on an up-and-under move out of post-up.

That group blitzed Maryland early, and Ohio State held on for a near wire-to-wire win.

Sueing finished with 16 points (helped by an 8-for-8 night at the free-throw line) and six rebounds. McNeil hit two threes and finished with 10 points. Likelele made all four of his shots and all three free throws to finish with 11 points and four assists before fouling out with six minutes left.

Prior to fouling out, Likelele gave the Buckeyes 23 minutes of solid defense against Maryland’s dynamic guard Jahmir Young, who managed just nine points on 13 shots.

“I thought his point of attack defensively was so good,” Holtmann said. “We had a really hard time guarding their point guard last game. He had five offensive rebounds. He got in the lane whenever he wanted to at their place. Ice was able to set a tone physically against him.”

The hope coming into this season was that the older group, which included three incoming transfers, could help keep things steady while the freshmen figured things out. That never really happened, and things got sideways. For the last two games at least, both groups seem to have taken a step forward together.

When the Buckeyes lost at Maryland in early January, Okpara encountered early foul trouble and logged only 12 minutes. He was thrust into starting duty back then with Zed Key out nursing a shoulder injury, and didn't appear ready. Now, with Key sidelined for the year with the same shoulder injury, Okpara is starting regularly and playing a much larger role.

He’s also a much better player now than he was then, and he put that on display on Wednesday night.

The 6-foot-11 freshman finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds. He blocked three shots and was impactful altering probably another half-dozen or so shots around the rim as Maryland finished 5-for-14 on layups.

“He’s just a better player than he was at their place,” Holtmann said. “I think all of our freshmen are better than they were at that time. I think we’ve seen it. He understands staying away from foul trouble a little bit better. He understands what we’re trying to do.

“We’ve been seeing some of this now for a month or two months now. Maybe not so much earlier in the season, which is understandable. We’ve been saying, ‘We’re starting to see this with Felix, what it can be and it’s pretty impressive.’ Tonight was just validation of that.”

When Ohio State beat Iowa in January to snap a five-game losing streak, it came back a few days later and played lifeless in a loss at Illinois before getting run off the floor at Indiana. In hindsight, it was likely always going to be difficult to sustain momentum on a road trip to two of the harder places to play in the league.

It wasn’t so much the losses, though. It was how players and coaches talked about the preparation and lack of focus in practice after that win, like the team had accomplished something by not losing a sixth-straight game. What could have been a spark turned into another prolonged losing streak.

So there was hardly any guarantee that beating Illinois in Columbus over the weekend would turn into something greater than merely a brief stoppage in the bleeding.

“The preparation after Iowa wasn’t great,” McNeil said. “We were in such a long losing streak that we got caught up in that one win. As far as this goes, I think we have a winning taste in our mouths. We’ve been doing things the right way. We’re gonna continue to trust in whatever the coaches tell us to do.”

Right now, words are matching up with actions. Ohio State is cleaner on offense, patient and moving the ball better. The defensive ceiling is still relatively low, but there have been better stretches on that end. The Buckeyes are winning more loose balls. They’ve won the rebounding battle in three-straight games.

“We’ve been playing the right way (for two weeks) and haven’t always had the result,” McNeil said, “but, knock on wood, we’re getting hot at the right time.”

Ohio State would like to embrace the fact that it can be a dangerous team in March. For now, it’s enough to say that players and coaches showed some pride and didn’t let the season totally fizzle out. Keeping this modest win streak alive in East Lansing on Saturday, the Spartans’ Senior Day, will be exceedingly difficult. Making a run in Chicago is nice to think about, but hope is a dangerous thing and this team hasn't earned the expectation that it can make some noise in the conference tournament.

But, who knows? Maybe these last two weeks of the season could get interesting.