Men's Basketball
Wolverines Outplay Buckeyes to Hand OSU Big Ten Road Loss
By John Porentas

OSU Head Coach Thad Matta has said over and over again this season that the key to his team's success is to get good, not great, but good play from all of his players. His team proved him right in an 80-70 loss to Michigan (8-17, 4-9 Big Ten) in Ann Arbor.

The inconsistency that has plagued the Buckeyes throughout the season was front and center, literally and figuratively.

Out front, Jamar Butler did some good things, but turned the ball over an uncharacteristic six times and did not shoot the ball particularly well, going just two of nine from three and six of 17 overall. At center, Kosta Koufos had a double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds, both team highs, but had enough bad minutes, particularly at the start of the second half, to offset some of his solid minutes. Koufos had four turnovers and lost several rebounds to Michigan players who simply stripped him of the ball once he seemingly had control of it. Koufos was nine of 19 from the field, with a good number of his 10 misses coming from close to the basket.

Topping the list on the inconsistent players against the Wolverines was Othello Hunter, whose minutes were limited due to early foul trouble, and when he was on the floor was not particularly productive. Hunter, who has had impressive games against the likes of Tennessee and this very same Michigan team, contributed just six points and three rebounds.

"You just don't know at times throughout the stretch of a game who's going to play well," lamented OSU Head Coach Thad Matta.

The Buckeyes (17-9, 8-5 Big Ten) played well enough in the first half to earn a 38-38 tie with the homestanding Wolverines. Both teams shot very well in the first half, OSU knocking down 68 percent from the field and 42 percent from the three point line. Michigan was 48 percent from the field and 41 percent from three. The Wolverines were able to offset OSU's overall better percentage by scoring five three-point goals to OSU's three. The Buckeyes also helped along the Wolverines with costly turnovers that led directly to 10 first-half points.

"I was disappointed in the points we gave them off turnovers and just errant passes, kind of gave them momentum throughout the course of the first half where they were shooting layups of our errant passes," Matta said.

The second half began as a perfect example of the inconsistency that has plagued the Buckeyes.

In OSU's first five possessions of the second half Koufos, who had played well to that point, had two missed shots and two turnovers. Matta.got him out of the game just two minutes into the second half before any more damage could be done.

"The start of the second half was not very good," said Matta.

Koufos used his bench time to try and get back on track mentally.

"I told myself to collect my thoughts, just take a deep breath and go back into the game," said Koufos.

"People make mistakes. I wasn't going to get down on myself, lose my confidence. It was just one of those times."

The Wolverines took the lead for good on a three pointer by Manny Harris to put them up 46-44. They moved out to a ten-point lead at 58-48, but the Buckeyes rallied to cut the lead to just two at 60-58 behind two three-point field goals by Jon Diebler and two two-point baskets by Evan Turner. That would be as close as they would get.

The Wolverines were able to maintain a lead of four to eight points behind a strong offensive performance by Harris and DeShawn Sims. Harris finished with a game-high and career-high 27 points, Simms added 22 more. Sims knocked down four of eight from three point range, several of his threes coming at critical moments in the game when it looked like the Buckeyes were poised to make a run.

"I thought the play at the end where Sims caught the ball and shot it in from 23 feet kind of typified that this was their day today," said Matta.

Matta was disappointed in an inconsistent effort by his team and lack of overall mental toughness.

"We've got to get everybody playing well on every possession of every game," said Matta.

"I've got to get mentally tougher in the second half. We had to finish the ball game," agreed Koufos.

"Coach Matta is exactly right. We've got to play tougher as a group, we've got to play as a group."

For the Wolverines, the win ended a string of losses dating back through the entire career of OSU point guard Jamar Butler, a fact not lost on first-year Michigan Head Coach John Beilein.

"We realized that those Ohio State seniors like Jamar Butler never lost to Michigan, so we talked about that a little bit, that beating Michigan eight times was not something that we wanted him to hang his hat on," Beilein said.

The Wolverines led by six with 2:42 remaining and were able to pad their lead by making eight of ten free throws in the final two minutes of the game. Michigan was able to get to the line 24 times overall and converted on 20 of those attempts. OSU attempted just three free throws in the game making two of them.

The lone real bright spot for the Buckeyes was the play of Evan Turner. Turner had 16 points on seven of ten shooting and 11 rebounds, but there just weren't enough other Buckeyes on the floor that were as consistent as Turner.

"Everybody has shown that on any given night a couple of guys are going to have good nights, both offensively and defensively, I'm not one of those guys that looks at the stat sheet and says a guy played well because he scored, really across aboard," said Matta.

"That's (consistency) what we really have to have."

They didn't have it in Ann Arbor, and it cost them another game.

Notes:

It Begins: New U of M football coach Rich Rodriguez addressed the crowd at the half and was greeted by some heckling from a group of OSU students who made the trip Ann Arbor. The students seemed to get to Rodriguez some. Their block of seats were at th end of the floor nearly at the top of arena. Rodriguez looked right at them and stated "I hope you enjoy your seats up there. The students held up a large banner with the number 1548 on it, the number of days since Michigan's last win over OSU in football.

Sellout: The game was reported as a sellout by University of Michigan officials, but around 25 percent of the seats in Chrisler Arena were empty as the game was played.

Photo Coverage

Box Score

Return to the-Ozone Columns and Features

Return to the-OZone Front Page