Women's Basketball
Buckeyes Claim 15th Straight Win with 69-60 Victory at Illinois
By John Porentas

You have to give the Illini one thing, at least they were original.

Following the spate of "whiteouts" that has swept stadia and arenas across the nation and have now become borderline trite, the movers and shakers in Champaign-Urbana came up with something original. It was "Paper the Hall" day at Assembly Hall for the Illinois (16-8, 6-6 Big Ten) vs. No. 4 OSU (23-1, 12-0) basketball game. The University partnered with the local newspaper, The Champaign News-Gazette, in a promotion in which just short of 10,000 tickets were given away in the hopes of creating a home-floor advantage for the Illini.

The first 4,000 fans to arrive were given "Paper the Hall" poster cards, cards that were about 10" by 20" to hold up during the game, thereby "Papering" Assembly Hall. The poster cards themselves read "Paper the Hall, Go Illini, Beat Ohio State" in big orange and black letters on an alternating and orange background.

It was a nice idea, but it didn't quite come off.

The poster cards weren't particularly visible in the stands, the over-10,000 fans that were expected turned out to be 6,227, a season high for the Illini but short of the goal and a little disappointing, and most disappointing of all for the Illini, they didn't beat Ohio State. As a matter of fact, the fliers may have given the Buckeyes a bit of an edge.

"The last time they played at our home they showed us the fliers they put out to everybody," said OSU center Jessica Davenport. "We remembered."

It looked like the Buckeyes took just under a half to adjust to the absence of Brandie Hoskins from the lineup following Hoskins' season-ending injury last Saturday, but once they did, the Illini, sort of like their promotion, just didn't quite measure up.

With Hoskins' slashing style missing from the lineup the Buckeyes turned to an effective inside-outside attack featuring center Jessica Davenport down low and guard Marscilla Packer outside with a little bit of senior forward Stephanie Blanton thrown in at the end just for good measure.

"I think Hoskins was the engine for that team," said Illinois Head Coach Theresa Grentz. "I think with her out Jessica decided to step up, and she did, she was going to take that ball play and she was tough."

The Illini stayed close while the Buckeyes were working out the kinks, but the Buckeyes ended the half on a 6-0 run to take a six-point 31-25 lead at the intermission. When OSU opened the second half with a 13-6 run to take a 12-point lead, it looked like the Buckeyes would blow the game open.

It didn't work out that way.

The Illini couldn't stop Davenport and Packer, but they did plenty of damage of their own mostly on the strength of some incredible rebounding. After nabbing just four offensive boards in the first half Illinois dominated on the offensive glass in the second, coming down with 14 offensive boards after the intermission to keep themselves in the game. Fifteen of Illinois' 35 second-half points came on second-chance opportunities.

"They're the best offensive rebounding team in the league," said Foster. "Bottom line."

The Illini outrebounded OSU 41-31 overall and ended the day with 18 offensive boards. By contrast, OSU had eight offensive rebounds in the game.

Illinois never led in the second half, but closed to within four late in the half as a result of their offensive rebounding and a stretch of cold shooting by the Buckeyes. For a while, it looked like the Buckeyes didn't have an answer for the Illini charge. Foster found one, however, when he inserted senior Stephanie Blanton in the game.

"Stephanie's a good shooter. She's always had confidence to shoot the ball," said Foster.

With the game on the line, the Illini needed to stop Davenport down low and decided to double-team her with whoever was guarding Blanton. Blanton responded by hitting two wide-open three point opportunities, one with 3:45 left to play to put OSU up by eight, then another with 2:46 left to play to put the Buckeyes up by nine. The shots were a one-two punch that put the Illini on the canvas for the count as they could come no closer than seven to the Buckeyes the rest of the way. Both of Blanton's threes came after entry passes to Davenport who then kicked the ball to a wide-open Blanton when the Illini tried to double-down on Davenport with the player guarding Blanton.

"You're going to take your chances and you're going to hope that Blanton doesn't knock that shot down, and she does" said Grentz. "You're rolling the dice. You can't play single coverage (on Davenport), if you do she's going to beat you.

"You hope that kid coming off the bench doesn't knock that down," said Grentz. "The most natural thing is try the kid who's coming in off the bench."

"She's learned she has range. I think when you grow up a post player (Blanton was a center in high school) then you're told to go play on the perimeter you think you have to be real close to the line for it to count as three," joked Foster of Blanton's pair of deep threes that sealed the game.

Davenport finished the game with a game-high 28 points and registered a double-double by adding 10 rebounds. Packer added 17 that included three-of-six shooting from three point range. Purdue was led by guard Lori Bjork with 17 points. Danyel Crutcher matched Davenport's double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.

The win was a good one for the Buckeyes, but perhaps even bigger for them was finding a way to play without Hoskins in the lineup.

"We obviously tailored some of the stuff we did for Brandie's unique game," said Foster. "Does that inhibit Marscilla's (Packer) ability to pass a little bit because we are not using her attributes as well, but don't have to? Today without Brandie Marscilla has five assists, one turnover, does a great job of feeding the post, so Marscilla is also a playmaker.

"Maria Moeller is probably going to have the ball in her hands more to make passes, five assists and one turnover (today)," said Foster. "Brandie led the Big Ten in assists for a reason. We put the ball in her hands for reason. Now we're just going to have it in other player's hands, but in the framework of how we'd like to play I think that Jess will present opportunities of them to show that they're pretty good playmakers too. Just different."

"You lose players, it's part of the game," said Grentz. "Jim's lost players, I've lost players, somebody else is going to step up and have an opportunity. Obviously tonight Blanton hits two of four. Somebody stepped up. That's why they're ranked where they're ranked."

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