Please patronize our advertisers to help
keep theOzone.net free for everyone.

The-Ozone.net Mall

Interesting, Fun companies with interesting, quality products - and the-Ozone gets a piece of the action!

Men's Basketball
Mini L-Train Picking Up Steam In March
By Brandon Castel

INDIANAPOLIS – David Lighty has always worn a big smile, but there was a little something extra in his look Sunday as he sat in the corner of the Ohio State locker room after their 90-61 thrashing of Minnesota in the Big Ten Tournament championship game.

A happy David Lighty takes his turn cutting down the net in Indianapolis.
Photo by Jim Davidson

The only thing missing was a victory cigar.

“With us losing (the championship game) last year, a game we could have won, especially without me playing, I really wanted to come out and win,” said the fourth-year junior who missed all but the first seven games of last season with a broken foot.

There is something else Lighty missed out on this season, however, that made the trip to Indianapolis especially gratifying.

Considered by many to be one of the best on-ball defenders in the Big Ten, Lighty was conspicuously left off the coaches’ all-conference defensive team, announced last week. The decision rubbed Lighty and OSU Head Coach Thad Matta the wrong way, but there was someone else who took it even harder.

“My mom was real mad about it,” Lighty said of the snub.

“She was angry, but I told her ‘Don’t worry about it. You can’t vote on it, I can’t vote on it so don’t worry about it.’”

Lighty has never been one to do much worrying. His laid back persona rubs off on some of his more uptight teammates, like Big Ten Player of the Year Evan Turner. Yet Lighty admits that being named to the 2010 All-Tournament team was a bit of vindication for being left off the defensive team.

“Maybe you could say that,” Lighty said with his grin widening.

“You could say that. I’m excited and I’m sure my mom’s happy about it.”

Recruited as a defensive stopper back in the “Thad Five” class of 2006, Lighty averaged 15.7 points per game over the three-day conference tournament this past weekend. He also averaged five rebounds and four assists while shooting 54 percent from the field and 38 percent from behind the arc.

“There’s been times where we’ve asked him to score the ball as we did in this tournament, and he did that,” Matta said after watching Lighty go off for 20 points in the tournament title game.

“I told David before the season started, if you can shoot 40 percent from behind the line this year, we’re going to have a heck of a basketball team, and he did. And I think we’ve got a heck of a basketball team.”

They certainly looked like a heck of a basketball team Sunday. They cruised past Minnesota in the second half thanks to herculean effort from Lighty, who took over the game during a key stretch.

“I will say that David Lighty had about a two-minute stretch today that blew Evan’s out of the water,” Matta said.

“I’ve never seen anything like what he did there for a couple minutes.

With his team clinging to a four-point lead midway through the second half, Lighty scored or assisted on five out of six baskets over a three-minute stretch that turned a tightly-contested game into a 14-point blowout.

Leading 44-40 with 11:42 to play, Lighty grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed shot by Jon Diebler and found Turner at the top of the arc for a three ball that made it a seven-point game. He grabbed the defensive rebound at the other end and drove the lane with the power of a freight train before finishing strong at the basket with the grace of a Porsche.

The Mini L-Train comes rumbling down the lane vs. Minnesota.
Photo by Jim Davidson

“That’s what they call me a lot. They call LeBron (James) the L-Train coming down the lane. They call me mini-LeBron,” the Cleveland native said with a chuckle.

He grabbed another defensive rebound and scored two more layups before knocking down a three at the 8:37 mark that made it a 59-45 game, thus putting an end to any comeback bid by Minnesota. In all, Lighty scored nine points, grabbed three rebounds and dished out one assist in a matter of three minutes to put the tournament title on ice.

“Win. Just win,” Lighty said of his mentality in the second half, where he scored 14 of his 20 points.

“Just attack mentality. Coach said that at the beginning of the game. We have to attack them before they attack us. I kind of had a mismatch with Sampson guarding me, so I just wanted to be as aggressive as possible.”

Yet after all that, it was a defensive play that stuck out in Matta’s mind after the game.

“The one time he got knocked down and it was a four-on-five to the other end and he comes back and gets a piece of the ball,” Matta said.

“His motor is just, that’s what we used to say when we recruited David – He’s got a motor that just won’t stop, and he’s got a great mind of how to play and we love the kid to death.”

Donate by Check :

Ozone Communications
1380 King Avenue
Columbus, Ohio

Help us bring you more Buckeye coverage. Donate to the-Ozone.

Click here to email this the-Ozone feature to a friend...or even a foe.

(c) 2010 The O-Zone, O-Zone Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, rebroadcast,rewritten, or redistributed.