Football
The-Ozone Note and Quotebook
By John Porentas

The Block: Last week it was Ron Lewis and The Shot. This time around it was Greg Oden and his block of the final shot of the game to preserve the win that was the last image that Buckeye fans had in the comeback win over Tennessee.

"I wasn't paying attention to the time," said Othello Hunter who watched the last six seconds of the game from the OSU bench.

"I was watching the play. I saw it go up, then I saw the block, then the light went on and I was like 'Oh yes!!' That was it,' Hunter said.

"People don't notice, but he (Oden) always blocks shots at the end of games, and they still drive it," said Hunter somewhat questioning the decision to take the ball into the paint at the end of the game. Like Hunter, Mike Conley was happy to see the Vols go where they did.

"I was just trying to contain the ball handler at that time. I didn't want him to get it to Chris Lofton because their play maker. The guy who had the ball definitely could drive, so I was just trying to play the drive and lead him into Greg (Oden) or somebody else back low and try to get a block, and that's what happened," said Conley.

"I didn't want to foul, so I pulled my arms away and let the big man take over."

The Knee: OSU forward Ivan Harris left the game with what at first appeared to be a serious knee injury. According to Harris, the injury came at the hands, or rather feet, of a teammate.

"Greg landed on my knee. I'm fine though," said Harris.

Harris too thought he was hurt seriously when the 280 pound Oden landed on him.

"That's what I thought with Greg landing on me, but I was fine. I got back up, walked it off," said Harris.

The Three: OSU freshman David Lighty had not made a three point field goal since January, but Lighty made a huge one in the game against Tennessee. His shot late in the game tied the score at 79 and kept the Buckeyes in the game. Despite his recent poor shooting from long range, Lighty was not hesitant to pull the trigger in a pressure situation.

"I was wide open. I've got to shoot the ball. My teammates would be mad at me if I don't shoot it when I'm wide open. I just squared up and released it," Lighty said.

Teammate Ron Lewis confirmed Lighty's comments.

"We were looking for him to knock it down. We passed it to him for a reason; he was open. We have the confidence in any player on this team, and that's why everybody keeps jelling together and we keep growing as a team," said Lewis.

The Strategy: OSU's second-half strategy was clear. Put the ball on the floor, draw fouls to stop the clock, and claw your way back into the game. Despite popular opinion to the contrary, that was really nothing new. The Buckeyes just failed to execute that strategy early on.

"That was pretty much our game plan from the beginning, but we weren't doing that too much in the first half," said freshman forward David Lighty.

"We always want to try to attack. We knew we were down 17 and some light goes off inside of us that tells us that we have to start playing basketball now. I think that's what we did, start attacking more and getting fouls."

The Buckeyes set the tone for executing the strategy early in the second half. The effect was not only to get to the line, but also to get into the heads of the Vols.

"Five straight times down the lane and get fouled five straight times, that's what you have to do to get their attention, and that's what I think it did," said guard Mike Conley.

The Doubts: Admit it, you didn't think the Buckeyes had a chance as the first half wound down. Neither did some of the Buckeyes.

"Once we started getting down 17, 18, 20 points it was hard to see the light," said junior forward Matt Terwilliger.

"But I know this team. As long as they give us any kind of chance we're going to take it. I think last week's win was more difficult because we were down nine with three minutes. They gave us 20 minutes this time."

The OSU halftime locker room has been portrayed as a calm place, but OSU Head Coach Thad Matta hinted may have been just a bit "edgy" with his team in an effort to remove those doubts.

"I was proud of our guys, but pissed off at them how we started," Matta said in his post-game press conference in a sound bite that didn't make it on the air most places.

The Buckeyes came out in the second half and played like a different team, a team without doubts.

"We believe. That's the main thing, we believe that we can win," said Ron Lewis.

"I never thought it was over," said Mike Conley.

"I came out in the second half smiling, laughing and looking at guys to try to get them back because they might have been down for how they played in the first half. I think when the team saw how I was acting and the way Ron was acting, we all came out and just built off that and it really helped out."

The Free Throws: OSU went to the free throw line 35 times and made 23 of them, but none bigger than the one Conley made with six second remaining in the game to give the Buckeyes their final lead of the game.

"I've never shot bigger free throws than that. There was a lot on the line. I didn't want this to be the last game playing with Ron and the seniors and Ivan. I couldn't imagine that, not playing with them again, so I had to hit those," Conley said.

The Attitudes: OSU was like two different teams in each half, and so were the Volunteers. Mike Conley said the Buckeyes always had hope, even in the first half, but that "hoping" was perhaps part of the problem as the Volunteers scored at will in the first half.

"We were hoping, but I think that was the problem in the first half, we were hoping too much in the first half that they would miss shots," said Conley.

"We were there but we weren't with our hands up and we were just hoping they'd miss one or two so we could get a run going, but they weren't missing them. We just had to buckle down on defense a little more and play a little tighter, put a hand up and do the best you can, and eventually they started missing them."

The second half was a completely different story.

"I think so because the way they came out in the second half they felt like they had won the game," said Conley.

"They weren't as aggressive and I think we took advantage of that the first four minutes. That 12-2 run definitely hurt them and kind of got them out of their game and we got a lot of energy out of that."

Tennessee's Chris Lofton agreed.

"They came out in the second half with great intensity and urgency. We didn't have our urgency on defense the second half," Lofton said.

The Mind Game: OSU Head Coach Thad Matta is being praised in a lot of places today for righting the ship at half time. Matta himself is actually questioning his coaching job.

"We wouldn't have been down 20 if I had done such a good job," Matta quipped drawing a laugh from reporters.

Matta admitted his team was in trouble at the half.

"The foul trouble, we were disheveled. We never got into a rhythm or flow. And quite honestly they punched us so hard, we were at the nine count. " he said.

Matta said his coaching at the half had less to do with Xs and Os and more with his team's mind set.

"We made a couple of adjustments, but it was more the mind trend. If I did anything, that was the best thing that I did," he said.

Mike Conley agreed.

"It's part him telling us we didn't come out to play in the first 20 minutes, we were soft. We didn't show a lot of aggressiveness offensively, defensively," said Conley.

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