Men's Basketball
Out of Tune: Bucks Sleepwalk Over CSU in Final Tune-Up
By Brandon CastelCOLUMBUS, Ohio – If Ohio State Head Coach Thad Matta was having nightmares about starting Big Ten play without Evan Turner, they certainly weren’t quelled by Tuesday night’s 72-59 win over Cleveland State (4-9, 0-2 Horizon League).
After looking exceptionally lackluster in Saturday’s 60-44 win over Delaware State, Matta was hoping for a more inspiring performance out of his team in the Buckeyes (10-2) final non-conference game of the season.
David Lighty scored a career-high 30 points against Cleveland State. He also added seven assists and five rebounds.
Photo by Jim DavidsonInstead, he will have to hope his team can throw the switch next Thursday in Madison when they open Big Ten play against Wisconsin on New Year’s Eve.
“I’m happy we got the win, but not satisfied,” said junior Dallas Lauderdale, who finished with 12 points, eight rebounds and five blocks in 29 minutes.
“We still didn’t play to the best of our ability and we know we still need a lot of work.”
Despite the best efforts of senior David Lighty, who scored a career-high 30 points to go with seven assists and five rebounds in Turner’s absence, the Buckeyes looked lethargic at the offensive end Tuesday as they allowed the Vikings to hang around within single digits until the final two minutes of the game thanks to the hot outside shooting of sophomore Jeremy Montgomery.
“We watched film and he’s been doing that all season long. He’s a crafty player and it’s hard to check him,” Lighty said of the 6-foot-2 backup guard who went 5-of-6 from behind the arc in the second half to finish with a team-high 25 points off the bench.
Montgomery came into the game averaging just 8.9 points per game but was called upon in the second half because team-leader and Dayton native Norris Cole was completely taken out of the game by OSU point guard P.J. Hill.
“The only thing we had left was to go to Jeremy and Jeremy performed,” CSU Head Coach Gary Waters said.
The Buckeyes got out to an early 13-3 lead in the game by attacking Cleveland State’s zone defense and forcing Cole into four early turnovers.
“You can’t compete at this level when your point guard turns the ball over four times in a row,” Waters said.
The Viking’s leading scorer this season, Cole came into the game averaging over 17 points a night. He poured in 29 points against West Virginia (11-of-21 shooting) but was held scoreless against Hill and the Buckeyes Tuesday as he went 0-for-10 from the field and 0-for-4 from behind the arc with six turnovers.
“I thought P.J. was really active,” said Matta, who opted to go with Hill at the point for the entire second half.
“(Cole) is a tremendous player. He had a game of 29 points and 38 earlier; so that was a primary focus but never in my wildest dreams did I think he would come up empty like that.”
Waters called a timeout at the 16:08 mark to switch his defense to man-to-man and the Vikings responded by forcing five Ohio State turnovers during a 9-0 run that made it a 13-12 game at the 11:59 mark of the first half.
“I hate zone, but we started in it to protect (Aaron Pogue),” Waters said.
“They got 13 points and we had to back to what we do and just focus on defense.”
It worked for the remainder of the first half. The Vikings forced OSU into eight turnovers and just 10 field goals to keep the game within five points just before the half. But they went to the locker rooms trailing by eight after William Buford knocked down a three from the corner with eight seconds to play in the half.
CSU cut the lead back to four points in the first seven minutes of the second half on a three by Montgomery, but they had no answer for Lighty at the defensive end.
The Cleveland native slashed through his hometown Vikings for a thunderous one-handed tomahawk dunk at the 13:12 mark of the second half and went on to score 15 of the next 16 OSU points as the Buckeyes went on a 16-6 run to take a 14-point lead at 56-42 with 7:25 to play.
“Lighty had one of his best games ever,” Waters said after watching him go 9-of-16 from the field, 3-of-5 from behind the arc and 9-of-13 from the free throw line.
“Right now I would consider him their best player.”
He had to be on this night. With Turner out, Jon Diebler struggling to get a shot and Jeremie Simmons on the bench for defensive purposes, Lighty was asked to do it all for the Buckeyes and he delivered.
“I was just trying to be aggressive, trying to attack as much as possible,” said Lighty, who shot 13 of Ohio State’s 31 free throw attempts.
“I got to the free throw line and I finally made some free throws. (Before that) I was shooting like Shaq (O’Neal).”
Shaq has always said he makes his free throws when they count and Lighty did just that against CSU, hitting nine of his 11 attempts in the second half as the Buckeyes pulled away for a 72-59 victory.
Game Notes:
-The Buckeyes are 7-1 all-time against Cleveland State.
- The Buckeyes are now 9-0 in Value City Arena this season. The team is shooting 54 percent from the field (276-of-511) and 43 percent from behind the arc (92-of-212) at the Schottenstein Center this season.
- Ohio State wore its gray uniforms for the first time in the 2009-10 campaign.
- Thad Matta's Buckeyes are 35-5 in the month of December. Under Matta, Ohio State has not lost more than one game in the month per season.
- Lighty finished with a team-high 30 points (9-of-16) with seven rebounds. His 30 points is a career-high. He is the first Buckeye since Jamar Butler to cap the 30-point mark. Butler had 32 points vs. Illinois Jan. 3, 2008.
- Lauderdale grabbed eight rebounds, which tied his career-high in rebounds. Lauderdale recorded five blocked shots and now has 35 blocks this season. He has had at least two rejections in the previous five games.
- William Buford had 13 points against the Vikings. In the five games since Evan Turner's injury, Buford has 28 assists. In the seven games prior to the injury, Buford recorded 16 assists.
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