Men's Basketball
OSU Offense Comes to Life in 81-68 Win over Jacksonville
By John PorentasDon't throw away that "Ohio State wins with defense" theory yet, but the Buckeyes showed against Jacksonville that there's some potential on offense too.
No. 16/17 Ohio State (7-0) lit it up from the field, shooting 64.3 percent overall and 58.8 percent from three point range in handing Jacksonville (2-6) an 81-68 defeat at Value City Arena. The main lighter-upper against the Dolphins was forward David Lighty who scored a game high 21 points on seven of eight shooting from the field that included two of three from three point range. He also hit five of seven free throws, grabbed seven rebounds, got three steals and tied for the game-high for assists with four.
Overall it was the kind of offensive show the Buckeyes have not managed until now this season, and it didn't have a whole lot to do with weak defense. The Buckeyes were simply good on offense.
"It was very uncharacteristic of our defense, full court and half court," said Jacksonville Head Coach Cliff Warren. "We haven't allowed anybody to shoot that well in several years, but give them credit, they made open shots."
Lighty led the way offensively but got plenty of help, particularly in the first half when the Buckeyes put 45 points on the board in establishing a 45-34 halftime lead. Four Buckeyes reached double figures including Evan Turner with 17, Jon Diebler with 14 and Jeremie Simmons with 10. Dallas Lauderdale and William Buford each added eight to the OSU scoring outburst.
All the offense brought some excitement to the Value City crowd. OSU Head Coach Thad Matta, however, was anything but happy with the way the Buckeyes played. Matta felt that his team traded their defense for offense when the ball was falling for them, and that did not make him happy...at all.
"We weren't into the game defensively the way we needed to be tonight. We had no tenacity or toughness about us," said Matta.
"I'm having flashbacks of what I saw (defensively) and it wasn't what it needed to be," Matta said, actually holding his head when he said it.
What miffed Matta so much was the fact that Jacksonville managed to shoot nearly 50 percent from the field against the OSU zone, something nobody else has done this season.
"We gave up 50 percent. That's probably the first time all season a team shot the ball 50 percent on us," said Lighty.
"They scored a lot and it was all off of us not being ready. We knew what was coming but we were lifeless out there on defense," said sophomore guard Evan Turner.
"It could have gotten uglier than what it was, they could have come back and won the game. It wasn't up to the standards of Ohio State."
What miffed Matta, and the point that he seemed to have gotten across to his team after the game, was that they simply stopped working on defense when the offense got going.
"Tonight the offense helped us and we played bad defense. Scoring is always nice, that's what we attempt to do, but at the same time one of these days we're going to have to put it all together and have a good defensive and offensive game," said Turner.
OSU's half time lead looked secure, but the Dolphins were able to crank up their own defense a little in the second half and eventually got enough stops to whittle OSU's lead down to five points at 69-64 with 4:01 left to play. Jacksonville had seized the momentum and the Buckeyes needed a big play. They got it when Jon Diebler knocked down a three to stem the tide and stop the Jacksonville run.
"We were just late contesting the shot and he's a very good shooter, he's going to make shots if he's open, so we were late in guarding that play," said Warren.
Jacksonville's comeback bid was stopped by Diebler's three, but it was also slowed down by some curious officiating. After calling a grand total of 17 total fouls in the first half, the officiating crew of Tom O'Neill, Steve Skiles and Eugene Clifford whistled the teams for a whopping 36 fouls in the second half. Both teams shot free throws from about the 11:00 minute mark on which made for a slow, choppy game. That in turn slowed down the Jacksonville comeback attempt.
"Definitely, it slowed the game down, the pace of the game," said Warren.
"Coming into the game our objective was to try and create the tempo. What we thought before the game was we wanted to try and create some havoc defensively and we wanted to try to speed the game up offensively. I thought we did that.
"There were a lot more points scored than have been scored for them all year, but in the second half the game slowed down, the pace was to Ohio State's favor and not to Jacksonville's favor.
"We couldn't get up and down, we weren't allowed to press the way we typically press, then when they missed shots we weren't able to race the ball up court and score. We were trying to score before their zone got set up."
Two players, starting forwards Lehomon Colbert and Marcus Allen, fouled out for the Dolphins while reserve baseline player Szymon Lukasiak picked up four.
OSU's defense did not please Matta, but it did produce 15 turnovers which the Buckeyes converted into 26 points, 17 of them in the first half.
"I thought we were tentative against their zone and tentative against their press," said Warren.
"The turnovers they got and went and scored right away. Halftime I think they had 17 points off our 11 or 10 turnovers. They did a great job of capitalizing on our mistakes."
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