Devin Royal says Ohio State needs more guys who want to play hard

ATLANTA – The message from coach Jake Diebler was still ringing in Devin Royal’s ears. Around him, the cacophony that had been Ohio State’s men's basketball one-point loss to No. 12 North Carolina was dying down. The stands had emptied out, workers were frantically cleaning State Farm Arena and the court for the CBS Sports Classic was about to be disassembled as the junior forward made his way to the visitors’ locker room.

His scarlet No. 21 jersey was more maroon than designed, a sweat-soaked token of the effort Royal had just put forth. In 36:25 of playing time, he scored a team-high 18 points, grabbed eight rebounds and had his final desperate put-back rejected by North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson at the buzzer.

After trailing by 11 points during the second half, the Buckeyes had rallied, taken a three-point lead with less than 50 seconds left but allowed the Tar Heels to close with four points to steal back the final 71-70 result. Diebler’s postgame message to his players: Aren’t you sick and tired of this happening?

“It’s a close game, then at the end something happens and they get up,” Royal said, clutching a white towel draped around his neck. “It’s always the same thing. I feel like today (against North Carolina) it was better until the end, but we still did the same thing at the end.”

That “same thing” was the inability to make one more play, be it offensively or defensively, needed to secure the victory. Still ahead by one point with about 30 seconds left, Ohio State turned the ball over against North Carolina’s full-court pressure despite being reminded in the huddle that the Buckeyes still had a timeout and also the possession arrow. When North Carolina guard Seth Trimble then slipped on his team’s final possession, the ball bounced from his hands past the outstretched arms of Christoph Tilly and right to Tar Heels center Henri Veesaar, who dunked it for the game-winning points.

Ohio State still had one more chance, but John Mobley’s 3-pointer after the final timeout did not fall, setting up Royal’s final putback attempt. The Buckeyes did enough to force the issue, rally and put the final outcome in doubt, but in the final 40 seconds it was North Carolina that made the plays necessary to win the game.

Afterward, a frustrated-sounding Diebler spoke of the Buckeyes needing to make some of their own luck by seizing moments and executing what they have done countless times in practice. He summed it up by imploring his players to find a way to simply break through.

To Royal, that meant making sure the whole team is connected when guys are coming off the bench.

“When two guys, or maybe three guys, are not in (like) how we all are, it messes up the flow,” he said. “If two guys come off the bench not pumped up, not energized, not trying to hit somebody, (for) the guys out there they mess up the flow. That’s my opinion on it. We need to have a collective eight guys, 10 guys that want to play hard. That’s all we’ve got to do is play hard.”

The lack of production is an ongoing concern. After moving freshman Amare Bynum into the starting lineup and bringing sixth-year Wright State transfer Brandon Noel off the bench, the Buckeyes did not get a single point from their reserves against the Tar Heels while all five starters scored in double figures. It was the first time since an 86-77 loss at Maryland on Feb. 11, 2017, that Ohio State’s reserves did not score.

The Buckeyes will host Grambling State on Dec. 23 before breaking for the holidays and resuming the season with a Jan. 2 game at Rutgers. This is the final lengthy stretch without games, an opportunity for Ohio State to perhaps get one or two players more ready to contribute.

If a breakthrough is coming, this would be a good time to prepare the battering ram.

“It’s going to be the same thing: teams aren’t going to give you games,” Diebler said. “You’ve got to go take them. I think that’s the big thing, the message. We’ve got to go find a way to make it happen. No one’s going to give us anything.”

Ohio State men's basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at [email protected], on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social or on Twitter at @AdamJardy.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State players need to play harder, Devin Royal says