Felix Okpara stepped to the free-throw line with a chance to put Ohio State ahead at Assembly Hall.
Only 3:56 remained – in the first half. Even in a tight game in which the Bloomington crowd hung on every possession, it hardly felt like a potential inflection point. But in retrospect, that’s exactly what it was. Not so much Okpara’s two missed free throws specifically, but everything that followed.
The Buckeyes missed an opportunity to take a lead late in the first half, and in one of the nation’s most hostile environments, the Hoosiers made them pay.