Men's Basketball
Buckeyes Open Big Ten Tournament vs. Penn State
By John Porentas
Ohio State (19-11, 8-8 Big Ten) will open the Big Ten tournament as the No. 6 six seed on Thursday, taking on No. 11 seed Penn State (7-22, 1-15) at 5:05 PM in Chicago.
The Buckeyes won both meetings with the Nittany Lions during the regular season. OSU took the first meeting on January 26 in Columbus by a final of 68-62. In that game Tony Stockman led OSU in scoring with 17 points. Brandon Fuss-Cheatham, a Pennsylvania native, added 15, Je'Kell Foster 14 and J. J. Sullinger 10. Penn State forward Geary Claxon led all scorers with 18 points and also pulled down nine rebounds. Guard Mike Walker added 12 points and forward Aaron Johnson gathered a game-high 12 rebounds.
The second meeting took place on February 12 at Penn State. OSU came away from that game an eventual 66-56 winner. Matt Sylvester led all scorers in that game with 15. Tony Stockman added 13 for the Buckeyes and Terence Dials 12. OSU shot 40% from three point range, Penn State just 11%. Forward Travis Parker registered a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds as did fellow forward Geary Claxon with 14 points and 12 rebounds.
There's a saying on basketball that beating at team three times is difficult. OSU will have to do just that in order to advance and play Wisconsin who has a bye in the first round. Buckeye Head Coach Thad Matta, however, doesn't think there's any magic in winning three times against one team in a season.
"I've heard that (it's difficult) and I think I'm different in that regard because we take it one game at a time," said Matta.
"You look at the two game tapes when we played them, try and figure out what they're going to do, what we're need to do, then go from there."
Having said that, Matta is not taking Penn State lightly.
"Penn State is a team that we've had two great battles with," Matta said.
"For them, they're saying they have to play 160 minutes of great basketball and they're in the NCAA tournament and all-of-a-sudden had a great season.
"They do a great job on the boards and they're not a team that fouls a whole lot," Matta added.
"They take pretty good care of the basketball, and when they're making shots, because they are a team that relies a lot on the deep three, they can really put together some runs."
With Ohio State ineligible for NCAA play due to self-imposed sanctions, every game in the Big Ten tournament is a do-or-die game for the Buckeye season. Matta says he will draw on that fact to motivate his team.
"You remind them that when we don't win, we come home," he said.
"We've got to play 160 minutes of basketball (to win the tournament), and it's one minute at a time. If you don't play particularly well in the first 40, you won't be playing the other 120," Matta added.
Senior guard Tony Stockman has already taken that advice to heart.
"I think that will help us to prepare and be focused for the game because we know as soon as we lose we're done," said Stockman.
"It probably would be different if we had a tournament after this, but I think we'll be ready.
"We had our couple of days of enjoyment and celebration, but we have more business to go.
"We're going to go into this tournament playing the best ball we can and see how far we can go," Stockman said.
"You always want to go in thinking 'Lets win the whole thing,'" added forward Matt Sylvester.
"You'd be crazy not to, but you also have to take it one game at a time and remain very level headed and not overlook anybody, and we won't.
"We're going to game plan for Penn State like we already did twice this year, we're going to scout them hard and we're going to go out there with the proper intensity it takes to win that game."
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