Men's Basketball
Penn State Zone Not Quite Enough to Trip Up Buckeyes
By John Porentas

No. 1/2 Ohio State (25-3, 13-1 Big Ten) defeated Penn State (10-16, 1-12 Big Ten) for the second time this season on Wednesday, this time by a final of 68-60, but for the second time it seemed like it was way too hard for the Buckeyes to subdue the Lions.

The Nittany Lions have not exactly been defensive demons thus far this season, but for some reason in both meetings the Buckeyes have been simply awful solving Penn State's zone defense.

"I don't know," said Penn State Head Coach Ed DeChellis when asked why his team's zone defense has been so effective against the Buckeyes.

"I guess I'm just a great zone coach," DeChellis quipped. "We're last in the Big Ten in every (defensive) category. I really don't have an answer for that. Why it works sometimes against these guys sometimes, other times it doesn't work at all, believe me."

For the record, Penn State's zone defense has them ranked dead last in the league in scoring defense, blocked shots and field goal percentage defense. They're a little better guarding the three point line, however, at 10th in that category and are ninth in steals, but against the Buckeyes, their defense looked like the Maginot Line. Penn State effectively packed in their zone to limit Greg Oden's touches and took their chances on OSU not being able beat them with outside shooting. For a big part of the game, that was a very good bet.

"We didn't shoot the ball particularly well, and a lot of times when you look at teams that have done well against them they've shot the ball, made shots. This was more of a grind it out type of game," said Matta.

"It's a zone and it's packed in," said Oden explaining why his touches were limited.

"They have a guy just standing there waiting for me to come one way. I go to one side and they call it out and I'm double teamed the whole time. It's always hard when you've got two guys on you." Oden said.

The Lions limited Oden to just four shots in the first half and the Buckeye connected on just one-of-eight three point attempts. DeChellis couldn't have drawn it up any better, and the net result was a 27-24 Penn State lead at the end of the first half that left the capacity crowd antsy at best. Were it not for a half-ending 4-0 OSU run, the crowd would have been outright nervous, but with OSU trailing by seven at 27-20 Ron Lewis scored on a dunk and Mike Conley closed out the half with two free throws to pull OSU to within three.

In the second half, the Buckeyes found two answers for Penn State's zone. The most obvious one was in the form of a strong second-half shooting performance by junior guard Jamar Butler who hit three of his four three-point attempts to negate the Penn State zone when they got it set up.

"When you have a presence inside like Greg all the defense draws to him and leaves us open on the perimeter. I just set my feet and got shots," said Butler.

The other answer they found was to simply not let the Lions set it up in the first place.

The Buckeyes got their transition game going in the second half and got their scoring done before the Lions were able to set up that pesky zone. Combined with Butler's shooting, it was the perfect cure for their offensive woes against Penn State as the Buckeyes put 44 points on the board after the intermission after scoring just 24 in the first half.

The Buckeyes ran and shot their way to a four point lead with a 12-0 run early in the second half to erase an eight point Penn State lead and put themselves up 36-32.

"If you look at our run a lot of our baskets were transition baskets," said Matta.

The Lions were able to to halt the run to keep themselves in the game a while longer but OSU went ahead for good when Mike Conley converted an old-fashioned three point play with 7:06 remaining to put OSU up by three.

OSU was able to stretch that lead to nine with just over two minutes remaining and as many as 12 and was never seriously threatened by the Lions the remainder of the game. Penn State did close to six with under a minute to play when when a three pointer by Geary Claxton cut OSU's 12-point lead to nine. Mike Conley then missed two free throws with under a minute to play, and Danny Morrissey hit another three for the Lions to cut OSU's lead to just six, but the Buckeyes were able to convert on six straight free throws in the final minute of play to hold off Penn State and claim the win.

OSU's second half performance was accomplished with a lineup devoid of a power forward as neither Ivan Harris nor Othello Hunter saw appreciable action in the second half. Harris played just three minutes and Hunter did not play at all. Instead, Daequan Cook was on the floor with Conley, Butler, Lewis and Oden.

"They (Penn State) had four guards out there," said Matta "and I thought we had a good flow going. It was strictly situational," Matta said explaining the lineup.

Ohio State shot just 27.8 per cent from three point range (5-18). Without Butler's four-of six from three, however, the Buckeyes were just one-of-12 for 8.33 per cent.

Butler led all scorers with 18 points. Oden totaled 17 and also grabbed 14 rebounds for a double-double. Daequan Cook added 12 and Ron Lewis 11 for OSU. Seven of Lewis' 11 points came from the free throw line.

Penn State was led by Geary Claxton with 15 points. David Jackson added 14 and Danny Morrissey 11.

OSU freshman point guard Mike Conley handed out 10 assists while scoring eight points.

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