Men's Basketball
Buckeye Second Half Run Buries Gophers
By John Porentas

You can usually look at a box score and see how a game went. Ohio States's 76-60 win over Minnesota ( 12-6, 2-4 Big Ten) might be the exception to that rule.

The box score will show that Jamar Butler scored 27 points, had three steals and nine assists. Jamar had a great game. Evan Turner had 17 points, eight rebounds and four assists; Kosta Koufos had 15 points with eight rebounds and three blocked shots. Both those players had great games as well.

The box score will also show that Matt Terwilliger had four points and three rebounds and that Jon Diebler had two points and no rebounds. Those numbers look ho-hum, but it was Terwilliger and Diebler who came off the OSU bench to spark a second-half run to hold off the charging Gophers and preserve the victory for the Buckeyes ((14-6, 5-2 Big Ten).

The Buckeyes started well enough, jumping out to an 11-0 lead on the strength of some good defense combined with some cold shooting by the Gophers. OSU's matchup zone was extremely active in the early going and seemed to befuddle the Gophers. In the the first 10:16 of the game Minnesota scored just three points and fell behind 19-3. The Gophers missed 11 shots from the field, one free throw and turned the ball over five times in the first 10:16.

"We just tried to come out and fly around and be everywhere, make it tough for them to score. Every shot, make sure a hand was in their face, contest every shot," said Butler of OSU's defensive effort to start the game.

"We've got guys flying around out there like that, getting in passing lanes, turning them over and leading to transition and easy buckets. That's the kind of defense we want to play. For some reason we had it tonight," Butler said.

The Gophers finally started finding a little offense and slowly crept back into the game. Lawrence Westbrook heated up a little from three point range and the Gophers had some success finding gaps in the OSU zone and then getting the ball down low to score from close range. Minnesota trailed by just 10 at the half and had gotten the lead down to eight points until two free throws by Jamar Butler late in the half made the score 35-25 at the intermission.

The Gophers kept chipping away in the second half. With 10:42 still on the clock OSU's lead was down to four points at 46-42. That's when Terwilliger and Diebler did their things.

Minnesota's Blake Hofaber made one of two free throws to make the score 46-42. When he missed the second one, it was Terwilliger who rebounded the basketball, ran the floor and took an absolutely perfect alley-op pass from Butler for a high-flying spectacular dunk that brought the crowd out of its seats and got them into the game. The play had Value City Arena rocking, and with the crowd behind them the Buckeyes promptly got on a roll.

"We just had more energy," said OSU Head Coach Thad Matta.

"The crowd was going crazy and I thought that was the jolt we needed at that particular point."

Everything started going right for the Buckeyes and wrong for the Gophers. Minnesota Head Coach Tubby Smith was called for a technical foul for arguing a call and Jamar Butler made the free throws to put the Buckeyes up 50-42. Terwilliger then got a steal and got the ball up court to Diebler who ran the floor for a dunk. Diebler then got a steal at the expense of Minnesota's Al Nolen that resulted in a fast break dunk for Evan Turner and suddenly the Buckeyes were up by 12 after being up by just four about one minute earlier. The blitz was keyed by the hustle of Terwilliger and Diebler at the defensive end and by their ability to run the floor for dunks.

"That's exactly what you look for when your guys come in off the bench. Jon came in the game and he just lifted our defense with the ball pressure and started the run with the lob to Twig and the technical foul. It was just one thing after another," said Butler.

"It has a big impact on the game. That's when the crowd got going and the electricity in the building just lifted us and we played off of it," Butler said.

The OSU run got was accompanied by a frenzied atmosphere provided by the crowd who enjoyed every second of the blitz.

"They were so good," said Turner of the impact of the crowd on the players on the floor.

"We fed off them, we were pumped."

Turner credited the crowd and the play of the OSU bench for fueling the rally.

"A shout out to Jon Diebler. He came in and got our defense going, got a couple of key stops and brought in energy and so did the crowd. We fed off both of them," Turner said.

OSU's fast start and strong finish were the highlights for the Buckeyes, but in between they were unable to hold off the Gophers.

"I think we got a little lazy on defense," said Butler.

"We heard that when we got to the next time out from Coach. We got lazy on defense and they got into the seams of the zone and made great plays.

"We just took our foot off the pedal, kind of relaxed on defense and they got in the seams of our zone and made plays."

When the Buckeyes did have the defense cranked up, however, it was more than the Gophers could handle.

"We tried to play like we do in practice," said Turner.

"In practice we go right at each other, at each other's throat. They always ask why we do that to each other and not to the other team, so we're trying to make it how it is in practice."

The one defensive lull was not catastrophic, but the Buckeyes still had trouble rebounding the ball at the defensive end of the court. OSU gave up 16 offensive boards to the Gophers from their matchup zone defense.

"Once again I thought our defense was adequate. If we could just clean up the rebounding we would be a better basketball team, that's for sure," said Matta.

"We lost our intensity there of going and getting the ball and once again I don't know how many times they hit us in the hands and we didn't snatch them and come up with them," Matta said.

Matta has steadfastly maintained that the Buckeyes should be able to rebound out of their zone defense because of the man-to-man principles involved with the matchup aspect of their zone. Minnesota Head Coach Tubby Smith, however, thinks the OSU zone impacts their ability to rebound.

"When you play zone, the zone is very vulnerable to offensive rebounds. It's tough to box out.," said Smith.

"That's what we thought we could do," Smith said of his team's ability to get to the offensive glass against OSU.

The Buckeyes are not liable to abandon their zone despite the rebounding problems. The zone has minimized OSU's foul problems and allowed Matta to play with a short bench. The Buckeyes played eight players against Minnesota, but one of those players, P. J. Hill, logged just one minute of play. Diebler was on the floor 10 minutes, Terwilliger 14. All of OSU's starters logged over 30 minutes, yet no one was in serious foul trouble and fatigue is not an issue. Matta seems content to give up a few offensive boards if his team can keep the opposition shooting percentage low, avoid fouls and stay fresh. The Gophers shot .365 from the field and .273 from three point range against the OSU matchup zone.

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