Women's Basketball
Buckeyes Find New Ways to Win Despite Double Whammy
By John PorentasA poor start often leads to a poor finish in a basketball game. A poor shooting night is usually a disaster. The Ohio State Buckeyes (12-1) survived both of those things against Alabama A&M (4-4) and went on to post a 78-54 win despite the double-whammy they had to endure.
The Bulldogs shocked the Buckeyes in the early stages of the game by streaking out to a 14-2 lead. They were pitching a shutout at 9-0 until Tayler Hill finally got the Buckeyes on the board with a free throw at the 16:27 mark. Katrich Williams made a layup to put A&M up 14-2 at 15:15. Jim Foster had seen enough.
"They got off to a good start. I think we started the game shooting jump shots, and that's not a good way for us to start a game," said OSU Head Coach Jim Foster.
Foster subbed Andrea Walker and Shavelle Little for starters Brittany Johnson and Sarah Schultze, and all of a sudden OSU's fortunes took a turn for the better. The Buckeyes went on a 11-0 run to trim a 13 point deficit to just one with 11:20 remaining to play in the half.
A&M's early success was a result of solid play by the Bulldogs and uncharacteristic cold shooting by the Buckeyes who are normally outstanding shooters. Johnson and Schulze are two of the better shooters on the team, particularly from three, but the two combined to go 1 for 10 from the field and 0 for 6 from three. Schulze and Johnson didn't corner the market on poor shooting from long range by any stretch of the imagination. The Buckeyes were just two of 12 from three for the game, usually a recipe for disaster. The Buckeyes, however, found an answer, and it was sitting right there on their bench.
Walker ended up logging 21 minutes and scored 12 points while grabbing seven rebounds. Little, meanwhile, was a defensive dynamo and wreaked havoc at the defensive end of the court. When she wasn't getting steals she was helping others get them or forcing turnovers. OSU ended the game with a whopping 15 steals to help the Bulldogs accumulate 26 damaging turnovers.
A&M was still in the game trailing 48-40 with 11:40 remaining in the game, but from that point on the Buckeyes simply took over.
"You could see a great team finally come together at that 10-minute mark and nothing you did was right and it seems like everything they did was," lamented Alabama A&M Head Coach Altherias Warmley.
"With the turnovers we gave them easy baskets. We couldn't recover from that," Warmly said.
"It's OK being down about eight, but when you go down 20 (like it did), and it went to 20 in a hurry."
OSU outscored the Bulldogs 30-14 over the last 11:40 to win going away. Foster was obviously pleased that his team found a way to win despite having several severe obstacles.
"We talk often about our three-point shots the days they go down. Well, it didn't go down today," said Foster.
"We didn't get a very good start, we didn't make threes, and we score 78 points.
"We've come a long way where we can have Sarah and Brittany be out of kilter and Shavelle Little and Andrea Walker and Allison Jackson come in and score points for us. I thought we worked through some stuff and got better as the game progressed."
Four Buckeyes scored in double figures. Junior center Jantel Lavender scored a game-high 23 and also pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds to record a double-double. Sophomore point guard Samantha added 16 points and 12 assists to also put a double-double into the books. Walker scored 12 and freshman guard Tayler Hill 11.
The Bulldogs outrebounded Ohio State 41-33, but paid a price for their rebounding success.
"They were sending five to the glass. That's their philosophy," said Foster.
"They probably got some baskets as a result of their philosophy going that way, send four or five to the glass, and we probably got a few more points in transition because they were doing that."
A&M's aggressive rebounding left them little in the way of fast break defense. The Buckeyes were able to outscore them 16-0 in fast break points and the Buckeye bench outscored the Buckeye bench 26-18.
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