Men's Basketball
Buckeyes Get Win in Snoozer
By John Porentas

The Buckeyes (5-3) hadn't won a basketball game since November 25. A two-game losing streak had left them in desperate need of a win. They got that done with a 47-39 win over Coppin State (3-7) in a game that was played at the pace that would have made snails jealous.

Coppin Head Coach Ron "Fang" Mitchell dictated the tempo of the game, and that tempo was slow, slow, slow. Mitchell felt his team could not match up athletically, so adopted a strategy of shortening the game in the hopes of staying close until crunch time, then maybe pulling one out.

"We knew we didn't have the weapons that Ohio State had, so we had to be patient, particularly on shot selection," said Mitchell.

"The tempo was the tempo that we wanted. We know that they like to score and they like to shoot and we just had to minimize, reduce the amount of shots they were able to take," Mitchell said.

Freshman Evan Turner got his first start of the season, taking the spot previously occupied by Jon Diebler, and responded by scoring OSU's first eight points of the game to stake OSU to a quick 8-0 lead. Coppin's zone defense, however, then began to frustrate the Buckeyes. OSU had no one who could penetrate the zone and the Eagles were able to close the gap to just three at the half at 25-22.

"The thing that's different about them is they play a variety of zones," said OSU guard P. J. Hill.

"At different times they're pressuring the ball or they're backing up. They invite you to drive and then they collapse on you," Hill said.

OSU was unable to shoot over the zone and for half had no one who could penetrate the gaps to create movement within the zone. The net result was that the Buckeyes struggled for shots, and on the other end of the floor Coppin simply didn't take shots until they were deep into the shot clock.

"They held the ball a lot late into the shot clock and then go one on one," said Hill.

Coppin didn't shoot particularly well in the first half, but dominated on the glass. Coppin had seven offensive boards which resulted in second (long) possessions.

"When you're going to defend for 35 seconds, which we did about 50 times tonight, you've got to find a way to come up with a first time rebound," said OSU Head Coach Thad Matta.

Even Mitchell was shocked at the rebounding results.

"Please. I can't even believe that. I think it's a mirage. Seriously, because we have not rebounded the basketball well," said Mitchell.

OSU's struggles with the Coppin Zone and Coppin's strategy of shortening the game made for a snails-pace game that was not only boring but also frustrating for Matta. His team got a needed win, but Matta was not at all happy with the rebounding numbers and was also obviously disappointed in the play of freshman center Kosta Koufos. Koufos scored eight points in the first half but went scoreless in the second. He had no rebounds, and Matta eventually benched him over the final 11 minutes.

"We thought we could get ball down low a little bit more but we didn't do a good job of posting hard and keeping the seal position good enough," said Matta.

"I think Kosta wasn't as aggressive as he needed to be down there. We need Kosta to play well, make no mistake about that."

The Buckeyes finally began to solve the Coppin zone in the second half when Matta inserted Hill into the lineup along with Butler. Hill was the lone Buckeye who could penetrate the zone with any consistency and when he did so, shots opened up for the Buckeyes.

"Coach just told me to get into the middle and be calm when you get in the middle then spray it out because everybody's collapsing, so that's what I did," said Hill.

The lone bright spot in OSU's game was the defense which was consistent throughout the contest. OSU's zone forced 18 turnovers and held Coppin to 35 per cent shooting.

"Coach told me not to let anybody in that pain," said Hill who was very active on defense in his 18 minutes of play.

"I took away the high post a lot and coach told me to drive the zone and get people shots, so that's what I did," Hill said.

Matta got good mileage out of the combination that had Hill on the floor with Butler. His experiment with Turner also paid dividends. Turner shared team scoring honors with Butler with 13 points on five of eight shooting. Turner said after the game that he had no idea he was starting until just before tip off.

"While I was getting dressed Coach Groce came up to me about three or four minutes before we went out to warm up. He told me I was starting and to go out and play hard," said Turner.

"I was kind of nervous. It showed. I turned the ball over a little bit, I was too hesitant, but Jamar Butler and Othello just told me to slow down and take it easy," Turner said.

"He practiced well. He had done a nice job in the six days of practice," said Matta of the decision to go with Turner in the starting lineup.

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