Please patronize our advertisers to help
keep theOzone.net free for everyone.
 |
|
||||||
Men's Basketball
Buckeyes Throttle Gophers 85-63 in Front of 1960 Team
By Brandon CastelCOLUMBUS – It has been a half century since Ohio State captured its last national championship on the hardwood, but there seemed to be a little magic in the Schottenstein Center Sunday as the 1960 team celebrated the 50 th anniversary of its victory over Cal.
With Buckeye legends John Havlicek, Jerry Lucas and Bob Knight looking on, the current Buckeyes (15-6, 5-3 Big Ten) put on an offensive clinic in their 85-63 thrashing of visiting Minnesota (13-8, 4-5) to win their fifth-straight game in conference play.
“If we didn’t know they were watching then we were blind,” said Evan Turner, who scored 15 of his 19 points in the first half as the Buckeyes built a 49-35 lead.
“I’m sure everybody knew and we could feel their presence.”
Led by Turner, Jon Diebler and William Buford – who combined for 64 points – Ohio State shot a sweltering 63 percent from the floor against the Gophers, who were overmatched from wire-to-wire despite shooting over 50 percent themselves.
“We didn’t give ourselves much of a chance to win today,” said Minnesota head Coach Tubby Smith, who called it his team’s worst defensive effort in a long time.
“We shot the ball well in the first half, but we didn’t defend. We’ve got to play a lot harder and a lot smarter. Ohio State is a very talented team and they’re playing well right now, and we’re not.”
On the other end, the Buckeyes used their defense to jumpstart the offense. They turned 17 Minnesota turnovers into 16 fast-break points. They even finished off five of them with exhilarating alley-oop dunks that brought the crowd of 17,125 to its feet.
“Transition is always fun and we had a lot of open looks and a lot of alleys,” said Buford, who scored a game and career-high 26 points on 10-of-14 shooting to go with five rebounds and five assists.
The Buckeyes were still shooting over 70 percent from the floor with eight minutes to go in the game while leading by 28 points on their home floor. They wouldn’t say it after the game, but it was a bit of sweet revenge for the Buckeyes and Head Coach Thad Matta, who left his starters on the floor in a 20-point game until the final 1:14.
“That wasn’t a big deal for us. You want to win every game. At that point we were just rebuilding. As coach said, we were getting the band back together,” Turner said of Ohio State’s 73-62 loss in Minneapolis back on Jan. 9th.
The Buckeyes allowed six second-half threes to Blake Hoffarber in that game as he single-handedly dismantled them with a career-high 27 points. But Sunday the Buckeyes held him to just 10 points – only four when the game was in question – and he did not hit his first three pointer of the game until the 4:30 mark of the second half, after OSU had already amassed a 78-55 lead.
“I think he’s the best shooter in college basketball,” Matta said of the 6-4 junior.
“That was the focal point of what we were trying to get established, not leaving him open. We spent a lot of time looking at the film from up there and we basically gave him four that he didn’t even have to work for. We knew he was going to make some (in this game), but we wanted to make him work for them.”
The Gophers were hoping to make the Buckeyes work hard for their baskets the way they did in Minneapolis, but Matta had his team ready for Minnesota’s press defense this time around.
When Buford and Turner knocked down just about everything they put up in the first half – not to mention the rest of the team- the Buckeyes shot 73 percent in the half. Tubby Smith attempted to use the full court press to slow them down.
“We did, it just didn’t work,” Smith said with a sullen look on his face after the game.
“They beat us a couple times and threw it over the top and got dunks so we had to get out of it.”
A big part of that was Turner, who had one of his better games running the point since returning from injury. Although his stats weren’t as gaudy as some of his other performances this season, Turner had an excellent feel for when to attack the basket and when to get his teammates involved.
“When you play against a talented player like Evan Turner, who can do so many different things, you can’t leave shooters because he’ll find them,” Smith said.
“He’s so patient and very unselfish. He could probably score a lot more points but he gets everyone involved.”
Along with Buford, Turner was able to get Diebler involved in the offense for a full 40 minutes for the first time in a while. After getting some tips from coach Knight during practice, Diebler looked aggressive coming off screens as he went 5-of-9 from behind the arc while also grabbing six rebounds to go with his 19 points.
He hit a key three-pointer with four seconds left in the first half to push Ohio State’s lead back to 14 points and the Buckeyes opened the second half with a 19-6 run that put the Gophers away for good.
“That was the focus of the halftime,” Matta said.
“I challenged the guys to get off to a good start and I thought they did that.”
With the win, the Buckeyes have improved from 1-3 in the Big Ten to 6-3 and are tied for second place in the conference standings behind Michigan State. They are back on the court Wednesday when they host Penn State (6:30 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network) at Value City Arena.
Game Notes:
* The Buckeyes are 13-0 in Value City Arena this season.The team is shooting 53.8 percent from the field (385-of-715) and 42.3 percent from behind the arc (119-of-281) at home this season.
* Ohio State leads the overall series with Minnesota, 75-55. The Buckeyes are 47-18 in Columbus, while Minnesota leads 37-28 in Minneapolis.
* Thad Matta is 5-5 vs. Minnesota. He is 61-32 (.655) in Big Ten games, the highest percentage all-time at Ohio State.
* The Buckeyes outscored the Gophers 49-35 in the first half. The 49 first-half points for the Buckeyes were the second most this season.
* Evan Turner finished the game with 19 points, three rebounds and eight assists. He passed Lawrence Funderburke to move into 29th on the all-time Ohio State scoring list with1,179 points.
* Dallas Lauderdale tied a career high with eight rebounds. He connected on 3-of-4 field-goal attempts. For the season, he is shooting 64-of-84 from the field (76.1 percent), tops in the Big Ten. He is 39-of-47 (82.9 percent) at Value City Arena.
* Jon Diebler was 5-of-9 from behind the arc and has made at least one 3-pointer in his past 31 of the past 32 games (only miss is at Iowa, Jan. 27, 2010).
Box Score
Team Stats Year to DateThe-Ozone Mall
Interesting, Fun companies with interesting, quality products - and the-Ozone gets a piece of the action!
Donate by Check :
Ozone Communications
1380 King Avenue
Columbus, OhioHelp us bring you more Buckeye coverage. Donate to the-Ozone.
Click here to email this the-Ozone feature to a friend...or even a foe.
(c) 2010 The O-Zone, O-Zone Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, rebroadcast,rewritten, or redistributed.
|
|
||||||