Men's Basketball
Buckeyes End Dry Spell in East Lansing - Claim Share of Big Ten Lead
By John Porentas
Dead fish start to stink pretty quickly, but a dead Albatross, now there's a corpse that has nothing but a sweet smell to it.
The Breslin Center Albatross that has hung around the Buckeyes' necks since 1992 died tonight as No. 13/12 Ohio State (20-4, 9-4 Big Ten) finally beat No. 18/16 Michigan State (19-8, 7-6 Big Ten) in East Lansing by a final of 79-68 to not only snap the losing streak, but allow Ohio State to stake a claim on a piece of the lead in the Big Ten conference standings. OSU senior forward Matt Sylvester was one Buckeye who was very pleased to see the end of OSU's losing streak in East Lansing.
"I've been waiting five years to do that," said a smiling Sylvester after the game.
"I've been waiting five years to walk off that floor and not have the band playing and everyone pointing and cussing at me, and it feels unbelievable."
Sylvester almost didn't get to have that feeling. He has been bothered by a bad back recently and did not play at all against Northwestern for that reason. His back was not good when the blew the whistle to start the game against the Spartans, but Sylvester answered the call and was in the lineup.
"I wish I could sugar-coat it, but the back was hurting a lot," said Sylvester.
"I'm a pretty humble person but I'm proud of myself for being able to stay out there and help the team with anything I could."
Sylvester's back was so bad that he could not sit during time-outs, so he either stood or knelt to keep the pain at a minimum.
"It was hurting literally the whole entire time. Sitting on the bench was the worst," he said.
"You're proud of a guy who comes out here because quite honestly we didn't know until warm ups if he was going to play or not," said OSU Head Coach Thad Matta.
"(OSU trainer) Vince O'Brien deserves the game ball tonight with all the work he did to get him ready to play. Matt's had more things stuck on his back than I've ever seen. We even had some witch doctors in there the other day trying to get him ready. Matt brings that sense of how to play and can relieve pressure and he did a nice job of helping defensively."
Sylvester's
line included 10 points on 50 per cent shooting from the field, six assists and six rebounds, three of them offensive, including a key offensive rebound late in the game that allowed OSU to maintain possession and run time off the clock to seal the win.
Ohio State started the game red hot offensively, hitting four consecutive three point attempts in their first four attempts to build an early 12-2 lead. The shots were hit by Jamar Butler, Foster, J. J. Sullinger and Sylvester.
It looked like the beginning of a repeat performance of OSU's shooting in Ann Arbor against Michigan, but the Buckeyes could not sustain the shooting momentum and missed their next six consecutive three point attempts in the first half. The Spartans, meanwhile, were hitting the glass where they hammered the Buckeyes 22-15 in the first half, numbers that included 11 offensive rebounds. MSU racked up 12 second-chance points in the first half and also got a great offensive contribution from Maurice Ager who scored both inside and out. They also got their fast break going for easy baskets and began to cut into OSU's lead.
Ohio State was still clinging to a four point lead at 34-30 with 3:27 remaining in the half, but the Spartans closed out the period with a 7-0 run to take the lead. They tied the game at 34 on a pair of free throws by Drew Neitzel, then took their first lead of the game on a three pointer by Ager with just ten seconds remaining in the half. Ager led all scorers at the half with 16 points.
Despite the four point Spartan lead, Matta was pleased with is team's effort with the exception of its rebounding.
"The biggest challenge we had at half time was to try and do a better job of rebounding the basketball," said Matta. "We had to impress upon our guys that that was going to be vital to us in this game."
The Spartans opened the second half like they were going to put away the Buckeyes. They extended their lead to seven over the first 1:10 of the second half and seemed on the verge off separating from the Buckeyes, but a three pointer by Sylvester brought the Buckeyes back to within four.
Ohio State remained close by getting to the boards and playing tenacious defense. They whittled away at the lead and finally tied the game at 54 apiece on a jumper by Terence Dials with 11:10 remaining in the game, then took the lead at 57-54 on a three pointer by Je'Kel Foster.
Ohio State led 67-63 with 4:57 remaining, but a three pointer by Shannon Brown cut OSU lead to just one at the 3:55 mark and seemed to give the momentum to the Spartans. That lasted all of 17 seconds because Jamar Butler calmly stepped up and knocked down a three from NBA range to reestablish OSU's four point lead and deflate the home crowd.
The Spartans needed a basket, and looked like they would get one when Neitzel drove the lane for what appeared to be an easy layup as the shot clock was winding down, but reserve center Matt Terwilliger rotated on defense and got a clean block on Neitzel's shot to give the Buckeyes the defensive stop.
"I thought one of the biggest plays was the blocked shot by Twig at the end of the shot clock there," said Matta.
The play started a sequence that was the beginning of the end for the Spartans. OSU was able to run the shot clock down to two seconds when Lewis missed a three pointer, but Sylvester came down with the rebound and called timeout as he was falling out of bounds to give the ball back to the Buckeyes with a fresh shot clock and 2:28 remaining.
"I was looking at the clock and there was only two-and-a-half minutes left or something like that. The pervious possession we had run it down the whole 35 seconds and I got the rebound and called another time out. At that point I was feeling pretty good about really draining the clock one more possession and then playing stingy defense," said Sylvester.
OSU continued its possession, and Lewis once again got a shot off, this time on a drive to the basket, and once again missed, but was able to get his own rebound and was fouled in the act of shooting as he tried to stick the ball back for the score.
"I guess they forgot to box out, and I went in and grabbed the rebound and tried to finish," said Lewis.
Lewis hit both free throws to put OSU up six with 2:01 remaining. Following a missed three point attempt by Ager, Butler stuck a dagger in the Spartans hearts by hitting yet another three, this one with just two seconds remaining on the shot clock, to put OSU up nine with 1:16 remaining.
"The second one I had to shoot. The shot clock was running down and it just happened to go in. I just took the shot, kept my eye on the rim, and it went in," said Butler.
The shot started MSU fans streaming for the exits and began the death knell of the Breslin Center Albatross for the Buckeyes.
"I would say we got a monkey off our back. It's been 12 years, but we really paid no attention to that coming in here, because 12 years ago we were all seven or eight years old. We came in here and played team ball and got the win," said Butler.
There were many big plays in the game, but Butler's characterization of the win as a team win is borne out by the statistics. Ohio State had five players in double figures led Dials with 19, Foster with 17, Lewis with 13, Butler with 12 and Sylvester with 10. Dials led all rebounders with 10, and Ohio State amassed 20 assists in scoring 28 baskets while committing just nine turnovers. Center Matt Terwilliger logged 12 minutes and was a bulldog on defense. Terwilliger played the crucial final five minutes of the game and did ont allow MSU center Paul Davis to be factor as the game wound down.
"Matt just did a tremendous job fighting down there on the block," said Matta in explaining why he had Terwilliger on the floor at the end of the game.
"The defense was the biggest difference in the game for us and trying to shut them down the way we did."
"I've been there three times and and its always a tough place to play, you know that coming in," said Dials.
"You just have to be tougher than the other team, especially on the road. Today our guards played terrific. We got contributions from everybody on the squad."
Updated Big Ten Standings 2/22/06 |
| |
Big Ten |
Overall |
| Teams |
W |
L |
Pct. |
W |
L |
Pct. |
| Ohio State |
9 |
4 |
.692 |
20 |
4 |
.833 |
| Iowa |
9 |
4 |
.692 |
20 |
7 |
.741 |
| Wisconsin |
8 |
4 |
.667 |
18 |
7 |
.720 |
| Illinois |
8 |
5 |
.615 |
22 |
5 |
.815 |
| Michigan |
8 |
6 |
.576 |
18 |
7 |
.720 |
| MSU |
7 |
6 |
.538 |
19 |
8 |
.704 |
| Indiana |
6 |
7 |
.462 |
14 |
10 |
.583 |
| Minnesota |
5 |
8 |
.385 |
14 |
10 |
.643 |
| Penn State |
5 |
9 |
.357 |
13 |
12 |
.520 |
| Northwestern |
4 |
8 |
.333 |
12 |
12 |
.500 |
| Purdue |
3 |
11 |
.214 |
9 |
16 |
.360 |
With the win, Ohio State moves into a tie for first place in the Big Ten standings with Iowa, each with identical 9-4 records in the league. Wisconsin is also still very much in the picture with a record of 8-4.
Ohio State closes out its season first with a home game against Michigan this Saturday, then next week they travel to Northwestern on Wednesday and end the season at home against Purdue on Sunday.
"We're still in the hunt for the Big Ten championship," said Dials.
"Obviously this is a great win for us, we haven't done it since '92, but we still have a lot of games to go. We're going to celebrate this one tonight and be happy about it but we have to get back to practice tomorrow and get ready for Michigan because they're a great team in their own right."
The other current contenders do not have easy schedules to close out the season. Iowa is at Illinois February 25, hosts Penn State March 1, and hosts Wisconsin March 4.
Wisconsin's schedule includes three road games. The Badgers are at Northwestern February 23, host Minnesota February 26, are at Michigan State March 2, and at Iowa March 4.
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