Men's Basketball
The-Ozone Note and Quotebook
By John Porentas

Buckeyes Celebrate with the Big Ten Championship Trophy
Photo by David Heasley for The Lantern

Milestones: OSU's win over Wisconsin coupled with the OSU women's basketball team's win over Michigan in Ann Arbor gave OSU outright championships in both men's and women's basketball. The Buckeyes also won the outright Big Ten football championship as well to become the first school in NCAA history to win outright conference titles in those three sports in one sports year.

OSU's men's basketball team has now won back-to-back outright basketball championships, the first time they have done so since the Buckeyes won three-in-a-row 1960-62.

OSU won 17 games at home this season, the most ever won by a Buckeye team in a single season. OSU has won 33 straight at home, the most ever by the Buckeyes in two-consecutive seasons.

The attendance of 19,044 at the OSU vs. Wisconsin game was a season-high.

The 48 points scored by Wisconsin against the Buckeyes was a season-low for the Badgers.

Senior Day: Seniors Ivan Harris and Ron Lewis both played major roles in OSU's conference-clinching win.

"I thought Ivan and Ron made big plays coming down the stretch," said OSU Head Coach Thad Matta.

"Ivan got a couple open looks there in the corner and they didn't go down for him. We knew they were slipping off him and putting him on Greg daring him to shoot, so we wanted him to keep shooting the basketball. Ron had a couple of nice drives to draw fouls. I thought both guys played with a lot of guts defensively and did a nice job of keeping Tucker in check and helping this team win," said Matta.

Limiting Alando: Wisconsin's Alando Tucker is the Big Ten preseason player of the year and entered the game the Big Ten's second-leading scorer at 19.9 points per game, but was limited to just 12 points by the Buckeyes.

"They're very athletic at the wing positions and at the positions that he has to play against and they can do it with different people," said Wisconsin Head Coach Bo Ryan.

OSU played a zone part of the night. When they weren't Tucker was guarded by a committee that included Ron Lewis, David Lighty and Ivan Harris, and if by chance he got away from his man, there was still another obstacle for him if he tried to get to the hoop, Greg Oden, especially when OSU was in their zone defense.

"If he does try to get to the rim there's usually somebody there waiting for him, and I think you know who that is" quipped Ryan.

"Just limit his touches," said Lewis of OSU's overall strategy with Tucker.

"That's the main thing, because you know he's going to get the ball a lot, but we wanted to limit his touches. That's what our goal was. Fortunately he missed a lot of shots and we contested a lot of shots. We did a good job on him."

Dramatic Moments: The last two possessions of the game were the stuff that legends are made of. Mike Conley's drive and floater for the game-winning points and Ron Lewis' blocked shot will be remembered for a long, long time. Conley's shot came with just over four seconds on the clock, but the freshman point guard was cool and confident coming out of the time out that preceded his game-winning shot.

Mike Conley holds up a sign from a fan.
Photo by David Heasley for The Lantern

"I had that feeling. At the time out I had a feeling I was going to get the ball for some reason. It worked out for us," said Conley.

"There are so many things that go through your mind in that situation," said OSU Head Coach Thad Matta describing the time out that preceded Conley's shot.

"Do you want the last shot, do you want to give them a shot, and quite honestly Michael had reads he could make and we were going to let him make the decision. Obviously, he made a good choice for us."

Following Conley's shot the Badger raced down the court and Jason Bohannon hit a three point shot, but time had been called by the Wisconsin bench following Conley's shot to negate Bohannon's play. Conley said he did not hear a whistle.

"I couldn't hear anything. It was too loud to hear anything," said Conley.

OSU Head Coach Thad Matta, however, did, and called his team to the bench while the Badgers raced up court for the disallowed shot.

"Yes. I was on the court. I saw it. Our guys were already at the bench when the shot went in," Matta said.

Matta then recalled the ensuing time out and defensive stand by the Buckeyes.

"Either he's super-fast or it seemed like it took three days for that to go," said Matta.

"We told our guys that they had enough time to get it up the floor, shot it and tip it in. We wanted to stay aggressive, obviously didn't want to foul, keep them in front of us and turn them at least one time to chew a little bit of time, and knew they were going to get a shot off. The big thing was to challenge it, not foul and get the first-time rebound," Matta said.

Greg Oden said he was not at all surprised that Conley made his big play.

"Coach always says that me and him are the only two that know what Mike Conley can do, and you see what he did the last seconds of the game. He just took over and took it upon himself. That shows how much heart he has. He looked at me walking out and he said 'We're not losing this game,'" said Oden.

Not Quite Perfect: The Buckeyes played outstanding defense against the Badgers, but did have a moment or two that left Thad Matta wondering.

"I felt defensively we did a good job. We had a couple of lapses there where I was calling one defense, three guys were playing it, one was playing another and the fifth guy was playing a different defense and Bohannon hits a three on us," said Matta.

Though the Buckeyes had some momentary lapses, Matta thought it was his team's best overall defensive effort of the season.

"I felt like it was see-saw, punch after punch after punch," said Matta.

"I think the great thing about a game like this is that it forced us to compete for 40 minutes. They got us down four or five in the first half, we get them down five, it was just sort of back and forth. As we always say, when you get in these type of games guys have to make plays and sure enough, we were the fortunate ones at the end."

Whom Are You Addressing? OSU fans chanted "One more year" following the game, obviously aimed at freshman center Greg Oden. Oden displayed a wry sense of humor when asked what his response was to the chant.

"I thought they were talking about Ivan (Harris)...then Ron (Lewis) popped into my head," quipped Oden with a grin as he smiled at both Harris and Lewis who were at the dais with him. When pressed for an answer as to whether he would stay another year, Oden was coy.

"That's a decision that's going to be made later on," said Oden.

Thad Matta said he would abide with whatever decision Oden makes, but when asked if he heard the chant, Matta said he liked the sentiment of the fans.

"So was I!," said Matta when asked if he heard the fan chant.

Wild and Wooly: The environment in the Value City Arena was absolutely rabid. Fans waved rally towels and made so much noise that players at times could not hear the whistle. Thad Matta said the scene was something he has hoped to see since he arrived at OSU.

"I remember the first time Mr. Geiger walking me through and I had never been in this building (Value City Arena)," said Matta.

"In my mind I thought capacity crowds and people going crazy. I thought the atmosphere was off the charts today. I think it's amazing the last three years the finishes we've had in here. The finishes we've had have been tremendous," said Matta referring to the game vs. Wisconsin this season, winning the Big Ten championship at home on the last day of the season last year, and Matt Sylvester's game-winning shot to end Illinois' undefeated season the prior season.

Game Story

Box Score

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