Ohio State’s Duane Washington and Luther Muhammad Suspended for Nebraska Clash

Ohio State men's basketball coach Chris Holtmann is dropping the hammer on a pair of sophomore guards. Luther Muhammad and Duane Washington Jr. will both miss Tuesday night's game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers due to "a failure to meet program standards and expectations," per the OSU athletic department.

The suspensions amount to another gut-punch for Ohio State, who have declined siginficantly over the past three weeks after a team that should have been ranked No. 1 in the KenPom ratings barely a month ago.

The Buckeyes will now be without their second-leading scorer in Washington, who was averaging 10.7 points per game but was benched only eight minutes into the team's upset loss to Indiana on Saturday.

Mohammad started the first 15 games of the season, but an offensive slump saw him riding the pine for that weekend clash against the Hoosiers. He is averaging 6.5 points and 24 minutes per contest.

If the Buckeyes' thinned-out backcourt leads to another loss tonight against the Huskers, it will mark the their fifth straight conference loss, a shocking thing to have to reckon with. Their Big Ten opener against Penn State, a 106-74 statement win, is the only conference victory of the season to date for Holtmann's boys. Now, with this pair of suspensions, getting back on track just got even tougher for the Scarlet and Gray.