Thad Matta is a positive guy, and he understands the law of averages better than he lets on.

So when Paul Keels, the play-by-play voice of the Ohio State Basketball Radio Network, tracked him down for a pregame segment and asked him what he was looking for in the Buckeyes’ game at Minnesota Tuesday, Matta had a ready answer.

“I said, ‘Off the heels of Saturday’s game, hopefully we make shots,’ ” he said.

Matta, of course, was referring to the 58-48 loss to Michigan State last weekend in which the Buckeyes were a dismal 26.4 percent from the floor and watched their 39-game home winning streak disintegrate.

After going 7 for 21 from the field in the first half against the Spartans, 7 for 32 in the second and making just 2 of 15 three-point attempts, even OSU’s head coach had to consider such a fruitless performance as somewhat of an aberration.

Sure enough, the Buckeyes showed at least a hint of marksmanship in Williams Arena, shooting 44.6 percent – 20 points higher – and dropping home six three-balls, four of them by William Buford.

But in the follow-up to the follow-up Saturday at Michigan, the ineptitude returned. The Buckeyes were just 19 of 49 (38.8 percent) on the new, shiny Crisler Center floor, including a 3-of-16 showing from long range. They also tallied a season-low 20 points in the first half.

As someone who didn’t watch the game could surmise, that wasn’t good enough for No. 6 OSU (22-5) to keep pace atop the Big Ten standings. In fact, the 56-51 loss put No. 17 Michigan (20-7) back in play and tied with Ohio State at 10-4 in conference play. Michigan State (21-5, 10-3) was a half game ahead of those two heading into Sunday’s challenge at Purdue.

Conventional wisdom says that MSU is in the driver’s seat, especially since it hosts Ohio State in the regular-season finale on March 4. But the truth is a lot can happen between now and then, mostly because the Buckeyes have yet to fully define themselves.

The deficiencies certainly are coming to the forefront. After the home loss to the Spartans, Jared Sullinger said the Buckeyes behaved like “spoiled brats.” Sullinger tends to overstate after defeats but his point couldn’t be overlooked. Along with shooting poorly, the Buckeyes pouted, bickered with each other, strayed from structure and even questioned referees’ calls.

Much of that went away against the Golden Gophers a few days later and Ohio State showed the requisite focus for a team looking to pull off a road win in the Big Ten.

But even after that win, Matta admitted that he still views this team as young and somewhat immature, especially when compared to last season’s squad that featured heady seniors Dave Lighty, Jon Diebler and Dallas Lauderdale.

“When you’ve got a veteran team, they know what you’re trying to get through each stage of the season,” he said, intimating that this team is still trying to figure it all out.

To the Buckeyes’ credit, they did attempt to run the proper sets and provide help on defense in the battle with Michigan.

There was just one problem – one glaring problem.

“We just couldn’t make a shot,” an obviously flustered Sullinger said repeatedly after the game. “There were open shots and we just missed shots. As soon as we start making shots this basketball team can be a pretty good basketball team.”

Sullinger could have ended his sentence with the word “again.” On the other hand, the dynamic Buckeyes that looked as formidable as any team in the country and destroyed Duke back in December are in the rear-view mirror now, wandering aimlessly and possibly strayed too far from home.

The latest version is searching for answers, and that simply is not like a Matta-coached team. In his previous seven years at Ohio State – and three at Xavier and one at Butler, for that matter – Matta has always managed to place his teams on an upward slant at this time of year and his record reflects that commitment to improvement.

In the seasons of 2005-06, ’06-07, ’09-10 and ’10-11, Ohio State posted a combined mark of 25-4 in February. What do those campaigns have in common? They all ended with the Buckeyes hoisting the Big Ten championship trophy.

Saturday’s loss dropped OSU’s mark for the month to 3-2 and the Buckeyes still have home games with Illinois (Feb. 21) and Wisconsin (Feb. 26) and a dangerous trip to Northwestern (Feb. 29) before the huge game in East Lansing.

Somewhere in that stretch the Buckeyes need to do the proper soul searching. Somewhere in that stretch the coaching staff has to find some answers.

Matta seemed stumped in the postgame interview room at the Crisler Center. He’s always a bit spent and disheveled after games, but the wear was showing on his face and the exasperation was in his scraggly coaching voice.

“You need to make some shots to open some other things up,” he said. “You’ve got to have a little bit of a balance, and we just didn’t have that. At some point we need to knock a couple down.”

Matta didn’t even need to look down at a printed box score that showed Aaron Craft was 1 of 6 from the field, Lenzelle Smith Jr. was 1 of 3 and Buford was 3 of 12. Four OSU reserves managed just one shot attempt in 21 combined minutes – a point-blank miss inside by 6-11 freshman Amir Williams.

On one key possession, the Buckeyes missed three wide-open shots. Ironically the last one was a 16-footer by Deshaun Thomas, who turned out to be Ohio State’s only effective player on the perimeter and other spots on the floor. He was 8 of 13 from the field, scored a game-high 25 points and ripped down a career-high 13 rebounds.

Sullinger had 14 points and eight boards but struggled at times against a variety of UM double-teams and by flopping defenders on the baseline (more on that in a moment).

Thomas was 3 of 6 from behind the arc and the rest of the team was 0 for 10. And with the icy-cold shooting effort, OSU’s assists-to-turnovers ratio plummeted again – 9 to 13.

What makes all this better is hard to say. Jordan Sibert has disappeared from the rotation and backcourt subs Shannon Scott and Sam Thompson are reluctant shooters. Evan Ravenel has played more sparingly lately and simply is a body to give Sullinger or Thomas a couple minutes of rest. Williams and J.D. Weatherspoon often don’t even see the court. LaQuinton Ross and Trey McDonald aren’t going to receive any meaningful minutes at this point in the season.

That leaves OSU with two role players at the starting guard spots and forces both Buford and Thomas to need to come through with quality outings in support of Sullinger if the Buckeyes are to beat a ranked team.

And, for whatever reason, the reliability simply isn’t there for the 6-6 Buford – even while he winds up a four-year career that will land him in the top five of the program’s all-time scoring list.

Matta is losing patience and is just about out of hair. He’s not really sure how to make it all right until some of the balance he is seeking is restored.

After the game, he reiterated that the coaching staff has worked on shooting with this team more than any he’s coached.

And while the defensive effort kept the Buckeyes in the game Saturday and has been consistent throughout, OSU couldn’t get stops down the stretch with the shot clock running down and also was guilty of whacking three-point shooters on two key possessions in the second half.

“I guess we got out too far on them,” Matta said with a tired shrug.

Speaking of fouls, the Buckeyes were whistled for five charging fouls, just adding to the perplexity of the situation.

“It may be an NCAA record,” said Matta, who also pointed out that the officiating managed to reward Sullinger with just two foul shots all night.

“We were talking about it during timeouts and we’re saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to attempt to avoid the contact down there.’ ”

Sullinger actually drew one blocking foul on a flopping Evan Smotrycz but otherwise was victimized repeatedly by Michigan’s propensity for landing flat on the ground and garnering a timely tweet from the officials.

“Sometimes I thought it was a good play; sometimes I thought it was a block,” Sullinger said. “But if the ref calls it a charge, it’s a charge.”

“I think in our prep we said to try to take three-plus, but five is always good,” said Michigan center Jordan Morgan, who benefited repeatedly from the call.

With Morgan receiving that consideration early on, he stayed aggressive and put together one of his best games as a Wolverine. The burly redshirt sophomore got ahead of Sullinger twice for fastbreak dunks and finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds for the first double-double of his career.

On the flip side, the Buckeyes often opted not to drive the ball seeing how the whistles went on plays of contact.

“I thought we tried that and we had a couple charge calls,” Sullinger said of trying to get the ball to the basket. “Then after that we got really nervous and we kind of got timid and we started falling in love with the three.”

The exception was Sullinger, who played with even more force. That led to good results when he began to take over inside midway through the second half, but also led to one of the most frustrating plays of the evening when he stepped in front of a Wolverine, appeared to get his feet set and was dinged for a blocking call.

Michigan point guard Trey Burke, a former high school teammate of Sullinger’s, could see that his buddy was getting perturbed.

“We said some words back and forth, but when he gets frustrated sometimes that may go the wrong way,” Burke said. “That may not be good news. But Jordan Morgan did a good job of containing him the whole game and we did a good job of sending doubles on the back side.”

The 5-11 Burke was highly effective with 17 points and five assists, doing much of his damage off the dribble and using a multitude of screens. Tim Hardaway Jr. added 13 points while seniors Stu Douglass and Zack Novak each contributed a very important bucket down the stretch.

But holding Michigan to 56 points wasn’t any part of the problem. Making just 9 of 23 field-goal attempts in the second half with the game still within reach was.

“I’m worried,” Thomas admitted. “As a team, we can’t afford to lose right now, at this stage. But all we’ve got to do is learn from it, go on to the next game.

“As a team, we want to win. We want to make history. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

I then asked Thomas what was still within reach for the Buckeyes.

“I think we can still get a Big Ten championship, our third in a row, and the national championship. That’s history,” he said. “The last time they won the national championship was 1960. That’s our focus, on the big picture. If we keep our faith and believe in our team, we can make a run.”

Of course, Thomas is on a different plane than fans who now wonder if this team can beat another elite opponent or even enjoy the potential fruits of March. The realists see a team that is clearly struggling and unable to hit enough timely shots when the temperature is turned up.

So how do the Buckeyes punch their way out of this rubber room?

“It’s all mental,” Thomas said. “Coach always says, ‘Mind right, game right.’ You’ve got to prepare and when you shoot in practice treat it like it’s a game. Jon Diebler last year, he always took a shot like it was his last shot. So it’s a mental thing. You’ve got to step up and knock them down.”