Men's Basketball
Buckeyes Go Stone Cold in Loss to Aggies
By John Porentas

It wasn't quite a precedent-setting loss in the Thad Matta era at OSU, but it was close.

No. 15 Texas A&M (6-0) defeated Ohio State (3-1) by a score of 70-47 in the final of the NIT tournament to hand OSU its first defeat of the season and Matta the second-worst defeat in his career at OSU. In case you have developed the ability to suppress bad memories, the Buckeyes were shellacked by Florida last December by a final of 86-60 to establish Matta's low-water mark at OSU.

This loss was a bad one, but it was a very different story from the one at Florida last year. In that game the Gators just plain executed extremely well and schooled the Buckeyes. In this one, A&M executed, but the margin of victory had more to do with OSU's lack of execution.

The Buckeyes shot an abysmal 24.6 per cent from the field including 19.0 per cent in the second half. That kind of shooting won't get you a win in the CYO league, let alone against the No. 15 team in the nation.

"I don't know how many I've ever been a part of where the ball would not go in the basket for us," said OSU Head Coach Thad Matta.

"They're big and they're very good defensively, I'm not taking anything away from Texas A&M but we could not put the basketball in.

"How many did we have that rimmed in and out? What happened is we began to tie the offensive end to the defensive end and they really just blitzed us," Matta said.

"I've got to give them credit, they played great defense, but those were wide open shots that we usually make and we didn't," said OSU point guard Jamar Butler.

"We had the shots, they just weren't falling for us. They really didn't take anything away from us. We tried to execute our system and it worked and we got open shots, they just didn't fall."

Butler was the lone bright spot for the Buckeyes in a game that was nearly devoid of bright spots. With 7:28 still remaining in the first half the Buckeyes trailed by just one, but center Kosta Koufos picked up his second foul and spent the rest of the half on the bench. Fellow baseline player Othello Hunter had picked up his second foul at the 7:44 mark and he too was on the bench for the Buckeyes.

The situation was bleak with both Hunter and Koufos sitting but Butler stepped up his game and scored 10 straight points for the Buckeyes to keep them in the game.

Butler did what he could in the first half, making five of 10 field goal attempts and three of three free throws to put up 15 first half points, but got almost no help at all from his teammates. Fellow starters Othello Hunter, David Lighty, Jon Diebler and Kosta Koufos combined for three of 17 shooting in the first half. Koufos was three of eight, Hunter, Lighty and Diebler were all zero for three.

Despite the cold shooting the Buckeye trailed by just six at the half at 31-25 thanks mostly to Butler. Then their bad shooting got even worse. OSU made just one of their first 18 field goal attempts in the second period, and for all intents and purposes, that was the ball game. By the time the Buckeyes made their second field goal of the second half, a three pointer by Butler, the score was 56-32 with just over eight minutes left to play.

"We did not have the juice we needed. We had that one run where Jamar got us going in the first half. Other than that we were on our heels the entire night," said Matta.

"As a player that thing rattles in and out and pops out again and again and again,. it's hard," Matta said.

The Aggies shot 52.7 per cent and also dominated on the glass, outrebounding OSU by a whopping 47-32 margin, but the Buckeyes actually got one more offensive rebounds than Texas A&M, grabbing 15 offensive boards to TAMU's 14.

"When you shoot 24 per cent there's going to be a lot of rebounds and it's probably going to be a little lopsided," explained Matta.

"They only had 14 and they were averaging 15 offensive rebounds.

"It was one of those nights where we get a free throw rebound, come down with it, they take it, we foul, they then get the next offensive rebound off the missed free throw.

"Whatever could go wrong tonight went wrong," Matta said.

Plenty went wrong, but three players in particular had things going wrong on the offensive end. Lighty, Diebler and Hunter combined to make one of 23 in the game. Diebler was 0 of nine, Lighty 0 of five, and Hunter one of nine.

The last time the Buckeyes took a big loss it was in the month of December and didn't take to the court for a whole week. They had to live with that loss for that period of time before taking the court again. This time around the Buckeyes will be back in action in just two days when they take on VMI at 8:00 PM Sunday in game to be played in St. John Arena.

"I had to live with it through Christmas the last time," said Matta. "I didn't like that.

"We're anxious to get back on the court after this."

Despite the poor game in the final, two Buckeyes were named to the all-tournament team. Both Butler and Koufos were tabbed as all tournament selections joining Donte Green of Syracuse, DeAndre Jordan of Texas A&M and Joseph Jones of Texas A&M. Jones was also named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

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