Men's Basketball
Buckeyes Get Fast Start to Bury Houston Baptist
By John PorentasThe Buckeyes took a break from their Big Ten schedule and pretty much got a break from serious competition with a lopsided 89-65 win over visiting Houston Baptist (1-16).
OSU (11-3) led 55-26 at the half courtesy of Evan Turner and William Buford each of whom scored 11 points before the break. The Buckeyes shot a torrid 66.7 percent from the field including 50.0 percent from three point range in the first half to pretty much seal the game in the first 20 minutes of play.
Freshman center B. J. Mullens added eight points before the intermission. The first half also marked the Ohio State debut of forward Nicola Kecman who was required to sit out the first 12 games of the season by the NCAA for participating on a club team in Serbia on which professional players also played.
The Buckeyes opened the game with a 12-2 run to establish a double-digit lead. The put together a run of 15-3 to move score from 21-12 to 36-15 with 8:40 remaining in the first half.
"When you're 1-16 a lot of teams have gotten hot on you," quipped Houston Baptist Head Coach Ron Cotrell of the OSU runs that were fueled by hot shooting, particularly from the three point line.
The second half was lackluster at best. OSU cooled off to 44.4 percent shooting and could not sustain its offensive momentum. The Buckeyes put up just 34 second-half points while allowing Houston Baptist 39. It didn't matter, however, since the Buckeyes had so thoroughly dominated in the first half.
"The started out on fire, Buford hitting the threes early on I think really caught their team on fire," said Cotrell. "It was contagious for them hitting the threes early in the game."
Houston Baptist never led in the game and trailed by as many 30 in the first half and 35 in the second half. The Buckeye won the battle of the boards by a 36-24 count.
"Their length inside really caused us problems on the boards," said Cotrell. "We knew that was going to be an issue going into the game. One of our keys to the game was to keep them off the glass, and that was difficult."
"When you get an inside game going with the perimeter scoring that they had in the first half it caused us a lot of problems."
OSU Head Coach Thad Matta gave his team's performance a mixed review.
"There were a couple of things we wanted to really emphasize and we got a couple of them done, a couple we didn't. One of the big ones was ball movement, and I thought as we started the game guys took to heart what we were trying to do, get the ball moving around.
"Defensively, I think we lost our edge as the game wore on and really lost our focus and concentration. That's one of the things that we talked about at half time and we didn't carry it through to the level we needed to."
Ohio State's ball movement resulted in 25 assists on 32 made baskets.
"The ones that weren't assisted were drives or pull ups by Evan Turner," said Matta. "That was a big thing for us. That's an area we've got to continue to hone in on and get better. It was a heavy, heavy emphasis for us."
Buford led the Buckeyes in scoring with a career high 19 points that included four of nine shooting from three point range. His previous career high of 17 was established earlier this week vs. MSU on 1/06/09.
Houston Baptist guard Gordon Watt, a transfer from the University of Indiana, led all scorers with 28 points. Gordon was eight of 13 from the field and six of nine from three point range. He registered a double-double with a game-high 10 rebounds as well.
With the win the Buckeyes close out their non-conference schedule at 10-1, the lone loss coming at home at the hands of West Virginia.
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