The beauty of college basketball at this time of year is early losses in marquee games aren’t devastating unlike in college football. Plus, there’s always another contest right around the corner with opportunity to ease the pain and (sort of) clear the slate.

Proof positive is the Ohio State Buckeyes. They played a clunker for 30-plus minutes against North Carolina Thursday in a game that was played on national television, in the nation’s largest city and on perhaps the biggest stage in basketball – Madison Square Garden. However, the Buckeyes rallied furiously – forcing Dick Vitale to abandon his blowout material – and lost only 77-73 to the No. 6 Tar Heels.

The distaste for their own performance was evident on the Buckeyes’ faces throughout the game and they set out to do something about it, knocking off No. 13 California less than 20 hours later. Still, all anyone seemed to be able to greet them with afterward was the near-miss against the defending national champions.

“I got home and I was walking my dog and a neighbor says, ‘Man, you guys played  North Carolina close,’ ” OSU head coach Thad Matta said. “The next guy says, ‘Ooh, boy, that was a great effort against North Carolina.’ But we lost. For people to celebrate a loss is something I don’t want to do. I don’t care if we’re playing the Lakers.

“I think from that standpoint it’s got to be a situation where we get the focus on us.”

Matta said there were positives from OSU’s setback. He was pleased with the transition defense and that the Buckeyes won the rebounding war against a taller team. However, Ohio State did not play like the more mature team and was inefficient on offense until it was too late.

Part of that, of course, was because the Buckeyes needed to adjust to UNC’s length.

“A lot of times you say, ‘All right, let’s pound it in side, let’s get to the free-throw line,’ ” Matta said “Their size was just so effective in that game. Luckily, you don’t see that type of size very often. But during a timeout it was a very simple message: ‘Make a shot. Put the ball in the basket.’ Finally we started making some.”

Still, it wasn’t good enough for the Buckeyes – even though it didn’t seem to bother their followers.

“It seems, just the feeling we got, that nobody really expected us to win because it is North Carolina,” junior guard Jon Diebler said.

“A lot of people were like, ‘You guys fought hard, you came back.’ We did, but we still lost. We aren’t satisfied with just keeping it close. We felt we could win the game. I take nothing from Carolina. They did what they had to do, but honestly we felt very confident we could win the basketball game and people saying, ‘You played the No. 4 team in the country; you guys came back; you didn’t give up,’ we’re all competitors and that’s not what we want to hear. We still lost.”

Classmate Dallas Lauderdale felt the same way.

“I got a ton of text messages,” he said, “talking about how ‘you guys played so well and I’m so proud of you,’ but I was sitting in my head like, ‘What are you proud of? We lost.’ The thing that hurt the most was in the locker room after the game we knew we should have won the game. It just hurts so much. We didn’t play like we were supposed to play.

“North Carolina is a great team and they hit some very big shots, but at the end of the game we knew we just beat ourselves. We made some silly plays. It was just frustrating, and then all the text messages. I had to turn my phone off.”

The Buckeyes (3-1), though, didn’t suffer much in terms of national reputation. In fact, they fell just two spots in The Associated Press poll to No. 17. Beating Lipscomb tonight isn’t going to change anything, but the players are hoping they can help Matta raise the program to the point where the fans actually will be disappointed after losing to a top team, which, of course, is where the football program is.

Can the hoopsters get there?

“Absolutely, and I think we’re in the right direction,” Diebler said. “I think since Coach has gotten here he’s done a tremendous job. Every year we’re moving up. With the recruits he’s getting, especially next year, I think he’s doing the right things and moving in the right direction.”