Men's Basketball
Illini Dominate Buckeyes Start to Finish
By John PorentasNot that he had a whole lot of choice in the matter, but it looks like OSU Head Coach Thad Matta picked a bad year to be playing in the Big Ten with a young team. The latest evidence of that is OSU's 67-49 loss at the hands of No. 24/25 Illinois (16-3, 4-2 Big Ten) last night.
Following the Buckeyes' (13-4, 3-3 Big Ten) big road win over Michigan last Saturday there were some who thought maybe Matta's team had turned a corner of sorts, but they couldn't follow up with a similar performance at Illinois. The result was a thorough beating at the hands of the Illini.
"We may have caught Ohio State at a good time," said Illini Head Coach Bruce Weber.
"With young kids, you win a big game like that at Michigan and maybe we have a little bit of the mental edge," Weber said.
Weber's team, meanwhile, was coming off a close, disappointing road loss to Michigan State. That, he said, also contributed to the outcome of the game with the Buckeyes.
"They catch us with a loss and we have the mental edge," Weber said.
"I think that's been a lot of games here in the Big Ten with the balance and the competition right now in the league. Every game is difficult.
Matta said much the same thing.
"I think that the reality of the league that we're in right now is 'You better be real good every night.' I think this was a decent lesson for them from the standpoint of it is every time you take the floor for every Big Ten game you play you've got to be ready."
The Buckeyes got a rather rude lesson in the concept against Illinois.
The Big Ten has become a league of deep parity, and under those conditions, a team has to be sharp every time out, a tough assignment for a squad like the Buckeyes with so many first and second year players in the lineup. It was obvious from the start in Champaign that they did not anything close to the mental focus they had earlier in the week against Michigan. They were sleep walking on defense, an area that has been one of strength of late, and committed nine turnovers so quickly that Matta had to call time out to try and wake them up.
"The turnovers were huge. It was odd. Balls were hitting us in the hands (and they were not catching them), errant passes," Matta said.
"I didn't think that we moved defensively at all. We were late to everything. We anticipated nothing. We didn't have what we needed defensively at all"
The mental edge the young Buckeyes lacked coming off a win, coupled with the mental edge the more veteran Illini had coming off a loss, led to a game in which the Buckeyes never really threatened after the first few minutes of play. The game ended up looking like one of those wildlife documentaries where the alligator gets a grip on the neck of the water buffalo and doesn't let go until the beast is quite dead no matter how much thrashing around it does. The Illini got up early and never relented, consistently adding to their lead as the game played out and never loosening their grip around the throats of the Buckeyes until all the life was gone out of them. They did it on the offensive end where their crisp passing led to good shots which in turn led to a 47.1 percent shooting game from the field. They also did it on the defensive end where they sicked their leading defender, Chester Frazier, on OSU leading scorer Evan Turner. Turner managed just four points on two of seven shooting. Without production from Turner, OSU's offense struggled to score.
The beating was quite thorough, but not without its bright spots for OSU. Freshmen William Buford and B. J. Mullens continued to show progress on offense. Buford scored 13 and Mullens a team-high 14 for the Buckeyes.
"Mullens is going to be a handful as time goes on," said Weber.
"He's got a big body, he's got a nice touch. If he shoots free throws better he's going to be tough to stop."
The Illini led by 12 at the half and outscored OSU by six in the second half to establish the final margin of victory. Their balanced offensive attack resulted in four players reaching double figures. The were led by a game-high 15 points from 7-1 center Mike Tisdale who was five of seven from the field and five of five from the free throw line. Dominique Keller added 12, Demetri McCarney 13 and Frazier 10 for the Illini. Illinois committed just 10 turnovers to OSU's 20.
Matta will now ask his team to regroup to take on league-leading Michigan State at home on Saturday. The good news is that they won't have to worry about being a bit fat and sassy coming off a road win. The bad news is that it's the Spartans against whom they must regroup, but according to Weber, that almost doesn't matter, because in the Big Ten this year, there aren't many weak links.
"I've been in the league a long time. I'm not sure if game in and game out you've been challenged as much in any other year," said Weber.
"It's really tough. You've got to be ready to play.
"There are different styles too. You have these guys with the zone, Northwestern has the Princeton style, Coach Beilein has his style, Coach Izzo is physical/tough, Purdue, so many different styles you have to adjust to. It makes it an even more difficult challenge."
It's not a league where a team can be up and down and expect to get some wins against lesser competition. That's the lesson in the loss to the Illini, so what the heck, bring on the Spartans and lets see of the Buckeyes learned something. If they haven't, a season that at times has looked promising could go south in a hurry.
Click here to email this the-Ozone feature to a friend...or even a foe.
Return to the-OZone Front Page
(c) 2008 The O-Zone, O-Zone
Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, rebroadcast,rewritten, or redistributed.