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Men's Basketball
Lighty Sparks Ohio State Blowout with 23 First-Half Points
By Brandon CastelCOLUMBUS, Ohio — A new night, a new leading-scorer for the second-ranked Buckeyes.
David Lighty
Photo by Jim DavidsonThis time it was David Lighty, the fifth-year senior out of Cleveland, who sparked Ohio State (11-0) to a 96-49 win over UNC-Asheville (5-6) with 23 first-half points.
“I think they opened in a triangle and two and he was the open guy and they found him,” OSU Head Coach Thad Matta said of Lighty, who finished with 29 points.
“He was the open guy and he kind of got rolling there. I don’t know what happened on his last shot there, but he did a good job driving it and I thought once again we did a good job moving the basketball tonight, finding open guys.”
Lighty air-balled his last three-point attempt, but before that he connected on a career-high seven shots from behind the arc against a UNC-Asheville defense that was initially out to stop him.
“I honestly felt Lighty was their best player,” Asheville coach Eddie Biedenbach said.
“We elected to try to point him in our zone, and what we did was we turned him loose to show he’s one of the best players around. I knew that, I said it to our assistant coaches, but you have to pick your poison.”
Biedenbach and the Bulldogs opted to double-team star freshman Jared Sullinger every time he caught the ball in the paint, and the 6-foot-9 power forward did an excellent job of finding his teammates for open shots.
“Jared is smart. As soon as he caught it he knew they were coming, he jumped up and guys got to where they were supposed to be,” Matta said.
“We told him coming in ‘you should be able to close your eyes and find these guys,’ and he did.”
Sullinger led the team with five assists and also did a great job on the boards, finishing with a game-high 16 rebounds just three nights after recording a career-high 19 in a 79-57 win over South Carolina.
“It just seemed like he was getting all of them. Jared is a very good outlet passer and he was able to ignite us,” Matta said.
“That’s big for us to have that guy down there rebounding. The last two games, he’s got like Jerry Lucas numbers.”
Over the last three games, the Buckeyes have had a 29-point night from Jon Diebler, a game of 30 and 19 from Sullinger and now a 29-point game from Lighty, who finished one point shy of tying his career record set last Dec. 22 in a 72-59 win over Cleveland State.
“With what’s kind of transpired here the last couple games, he was the guy here tonight,” Matta said of Lighty, who was 11-of-16 from the field and 7-of-10 from behind the arc before checking out for good at the 10:23 mark of the second half.
“Actually, I didn’t know I hit seven until like five minutes left in the game when Aaron Craft came and told me,” said Lighty, who was two three-pointers shy of tying Diebler and Jay Burson for the school-record.
“He was like ‘You could have caught Jonny D on his record,’ but as long as we win the game I’m happy.”
A career half for Lighty in the first, he was one shy of the 24 points scored by the Bulldogs. Fortunately for Lighty, who made five of his threes in the first half, his teammates also did some scoring.
Sullinger scored five of his nine points and William Buford added nine of his 15 in the first half as the Buckeyes took a 48-24 lead into the locker rooms.
“We started out with some gimmick defenses trying to change them up, but they don’t try to do anything fancy or tricky,” Biedenbach said.
“They’re a very sound basketball team fundamentally and they take open shots. They make open passes and they don’t try to thread the needle. They don’t do things to get themselves in trouble.”
The Bulldogs tried to get back in the game with an 8-0 run to start the second half, but Lighty knocked down another three at the 17:11 mark and Craft connected from long range just over a minute later to put the Buckeyes back on top by 20.
Freshman Deshaun Thomas scored 13 points and grabbed eight rebounds in 20 minutes off the bench as Ohio State pulled away for a 47-point victory despite emptying their bench midway through the second half.
“For us to come up here and do what I wanted to do, we had to hope they had a little bit of a letdown playing a team like UNC-Asheville and we had to play our best game,” Biedenbach said.
“We didn’t play well and Ohio State I thought played exceptionally well. With Duke’s point guard out, they’re as good as anybody in the country. They play the game the way it’s meant to be played.”
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