2012-13 Men's Basketball (B1G Tourney Champs, NCAA Elite Eight)

[LitlBuck]

I don't know if I totally agree:stupid: with Thad because I believe poor competition leads to bad habits but I guess they can be corrected in practice. Maybe I just answered my own question.

Ohio State gave its season-ticket holders the kind of home nonconference schedule that once made knitting a way to pass the time at Value City Arena.

The Buckeyes beat up on Albany, Missouri-Kansas City, Northern Kentucky, Long Beach State, Savannah State, North Carolina-Asheville and Winthrop by an average of 28.1 points. Today?s game against Chicago State should offer more of the same, especially after the players have had a week to ruminate on their home loss to Kansas last Saturday.

But as far as the level of competition the Buckeyes have faced having any bearing on how they will fare in the Big Ten season, which starts next week: That?s not likely.

Ohio State?s strength-of-schedule rating on CBSSports.com yesterday ranked 79th among 347 Division I teams. That was bolstered by games against Duke and Kansas, the top two teams in the RPI. Washington (97th) was the only other opponent in the top 100 (Marquette, the opponent in the canceled opener, ranks 96th).

But the Buckeyes? strength-of-schedule standing at the end of their nonconference schedule the past three years ? when they won at least a share of the conference championship each season ? was even lower: 105th last season, 194th in 2011 and 257th in 2010.

Coach Thad Matta joked that if the theory were true that teams must play tough nonconference games to prepare for tough conference games, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich ?never would have sent his top four players home and not played (them) against the Miami Heat? in November.

?There?s more to? preparing a team than playing high-end competition early in the season, Matta said. Popovich, he said, was ?thinking May ? thinking June (the playoffs) for the players.?

Matta is thinking March for his. It is not as important to him how good they are today as long as they are better than they were yesterday. Focusing on improving a day at a time has served his teams well.

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[LitlBuck]

When the college basketball season began seven weeks ago, two-thirds of the 65 voters in the Associated Press top 25 poll believed Indiana was the No. 1 team in the nation.

Not anymore. The Hoosiers were knocked off Dec. 15 in their own backyard of Indianapolis, by a smaller Butler team that outscrapped them for rebounds and outscored them in overtime despite having three players fouled out.

?Don?t use this as an excuse to get down on Indiana,? Butler coach Brad Stevens said after the game. ?I still think they?re the team to beat in April.?

Before that happens, though, can the Hoosiers prove themselves the team to beat in the Big Ten?

The toughest conference in the nation, as judged by the computerized Rating Percentage Index, tips off league play Monday with two games. Michigan State is at Minnesota and the Hoosiers, now ranked No. 5, are at Iowa.

Five Big Ten teams besides Indiana also are among the top 25: No. 2 Michigan, No. 10 Ohio State, No. 11 Minnesota, No. 12 Illinois and No. 19 Michigan State.

Ohio State coach Thad Matta said he thinks ?the margin for error, the gap or separation (between teams), is really small.?

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[LitlBuck]

Deep Big Ten awaits Buckeyes

It did not take long for coach Thad Matta to see that some of his players? minds were elsewhere on Saturday when the Ohio State men?s basketball team tipped off against Chicago State.

Before the game, Matta said, a point of emphasis was to defend three-point shots. Chicago State made three, on consecutive possessions, in the first four minutes.

On offense, an emphasis was to try to score inside. When Chicago State switched to a zone defense out of the first timeout, the Buckeyes missed six consecutive three-point attempts ? and in the process let their opponent hang around for another eight minutes ? before heeding the plan and pulling away with seven consecutive layups or rebound baskets.

The Buckeyes won the game, the last on their nonconference schedule, by 43 points. Afterward, Matta was asked if they were ready for the grind of the Big Ten season, beginning tonight against Nebraska.

?I think so,? he said. ?But that?s an ongoing process, getting guys to understand and appreciate what it takes to get your mind ready to play at the level that you have to play every single night you take the floor. We?ve got to keep showing film, we?ve got to keep practicing at an incredible level and seeing the improvement every night we take the floor because the secrets will be gone.?

One of the hallmarks of Big Ten basketball the past decade is the high level of coaching, scouting and preparation that goes into each game. All things being relatively even in that regard, wins and losses then come down to players and how well they execute.

The Buckeyes have done that well enough to win at least a share of the conference championship three years running and five of the past seven. This season, though, progress on that front has been sporadic because of veteran players struggling at times to take on larger roles and newcomers growing into new roles.

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[LitlBuck]

It is time to repair to warm gyms on cold nights and, for this, we in the Midwest are especially well-situated at this moment in time.

There are years when Big Ten basketball is overrated, but not this year. Indiana is a favorite for its first conference title since 2002. Indiana, Michigan, Ohio State, Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan State are ranked among the top 18 teams in the latest Associated Press poll. Wisconsin also lurks. Wisconsin always lurks.

Over the next two-plus months, they will beat each other senseless in their quest to prevail in the best conference in college basketball.

Last night, No. 8 Ohio State opened its conference schedule with a resounding 70-44 victory over Nebraska at Value City Arena. A crowd of 15,900 stirred only intermittently, like when Sam Thompson threw down a windmill alley-oop. It matters little that Nebraska is a rebuilding program, as the more gentle souls like to say. They are a conference opponent, and they have some nasty brothers coming down the pike.

Ohio State (11-2, 1-0) has won or shared the Big Ten title the past three years, and five of the past seven years. The Buckeyes have a premier scorer in Deshaun Thomas, who had 22 points and eight rebounds last night. They have a deep and dynamic backcourt led by Aaron Craft, who had zero points, eight assists, six rebounds and three steals last night. Yet, they are a dark horse because of their question mark in the middle.

Jared Sullinger has matriculated to Boston and, back here in Columbus, Amir Williams, a sophomore, and Evan Ravenel, a post-graduate, will have to do something to mitigate the loss. It will be critical. It will not be easy.

Williams, 6 feet 11 and 250 pounds, has two career starts and they have come in the past two games. Last night, he set career highs with eight points, four blocks and two steals. Coach Thad Matta wants him to be a presence, first, and add more as confidence grows. Against Nebraska, he did what was required.
?I thought they did a good job with their interior defense,?

Nebraska coach Tim Miles said. ?We were 11 for 35 on twos, and that?s just ineffective basketball. They blocked six shots and probably altered another four, five or six. We couldn?t get anything going against them in the paint at all, and that hurt us.?

Ravenel, 6-8 and 260 pounds, started the first 11 games of the season. In the best of worlds, he would come off the bench and buttress the center and power-forward positions. Matta appears to be shaping the rotation that way for the Big Ten season. Last night, Ravenel had seven points, two rebounds and a blocked shot in 11 minutes. Sophomore Trey McDonald, 6-8 and 225 pounds, also played 11 minutes.


?I think we?re getting better, the more experience we get,? Matta said. ?I do think we need that consistency, we need (to) know what we?re getting from that spot. Guys appear to be more prideful in what they?re doing, which is really helping our team.?

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[starBUCKS]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rankings

#15 in this week's AP Poll

 

[LitlBuck]

We better get better and fast. Purdue will be tough enough on the road for us tomorrow but sCum comes to town Sunday as they are playing extremely well.

 

[NJ-Buckeye]

You can fix a lot of things on a basketball team... but rarely can you significantly improve their shooting

Jent is earning his pay attempting to do so

 

[DZ83CK]

This OSU team is like a lot of teams in college basketball in the sense that they can look really good at times in some games but don't give their best effort in many games so they look mediocre in other games. They need to bring it from the opening tip and not wait until there are 10 minutes left to ramp up the effort level. At this point OSU is not a championship level basketball team because they don't put forth a champion effort on a consistent basis. I don't doubt that they could score a big upset win this year, but they need to get their collective head out of their hindquarters and realize they need to play a lot harder and smarter. I wish this team had a Draymond Green-like leader to help get them in line, but they don't have one. They have time to turn it around, but this is probably not going to be a very memorable year for OSU.

 

[LitlBuck]

When coach Thad Matta said two years ago that Ohio State should erect a statue of David Lighty outside the Schottenstein Center for all he had meant to the men?s basketball program, the reporters who heard it laughed.

Although Lighty wore jersey No. 23, he was no Michael Jordan.
Or was he, in one intangible way?

From the time his fellow freshmen left him in 2007, after one season, to seek their NBA fortunes, Lighty became the Buckeyes? undisputed leader for the next four years ? even the one he mostly missed because of a broken foot. He showed uncounted newcomers how a player in the program takes care of his business, and if they didn?t learn from his example, he spelled it out for them.

Lighty?s value in that regard became relevant after the Buckeyes? loss at Illinois last weekend. They rebounded Tuesday to win at Purdue, but they remain a work in progress, with questionable firepower, that has yet to defeat a ranked opponent. They get their next chance on Sunday against No. 2 Michigan at Value City Arena.

They would seem to be a team that would benefit from a voice like Lighty?s.

?I think every team would like to have that,? Matta said.
But they don?t.

The most logical option, junior point guard Aaron Craft, was asked after the loss at Illinois if he needs to be that guy. ?I think Aaron knows I have the confidence in him to do that,? Matta said.
But Craft, despite an on-court feistiness that would suggest otherwise, said that?s not who he is. Not yet, anyway.

?The coaches are the hardest on us, and they should be. As teammates, we need to build each other up, continue to get after one another in a positive way and stick together,? Craft said. ?One of my best attributes is just being myself and leading by example, talking when I need to, and being the player I am. I think that?s the best type of leader I can be.

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[LitlBuck]

Ted Valentine a.k.a. Teddy TV a.k.a. The Drama Queen

I did not read the entire Ohio State at Sparty thread so forgive me if this was discussed. I know that many of you did not particularly care for Dakich as a color announcer but one thing I will give him credit for is that he is not afraid to call out Teddy TV when he goes into his showmanship act or makes a questionable call.

I guess it first got started when TV had to make such a dramatized run to the scorer's table just to inform them that he was giving Ohio State a delay of game warning because ER had his hands extended over the baseline. Most officials just worn the player. They don't go running over to the scorer's table waving their arms like a screaming fool (which he is). The second problem that I had with Teddy was not the charge/block foul where I am almost sure that he overruled the official that was going to call the block on the Michigan State player but old Teddy decided to call it a charge on Scott and the other official was in even better position to make the call. TV was on the side of the play. I don't know why other officials let him over rule them so much and I wish just once that Matta or one of the Ohio State assistants would just explode on Valentine. He just gets more and more ignoring.

 

[OhioState001]

Is there any other conference in basketball where the officials are so well known? Every team in the conference wants to kill itself when they hear TV Ted, Showtime Eddie or Jim Burr are doing their game.

 

[Bulls-Eye]

That charge/block call was horrible. If it is a bang/bang play, how can you give it to the defender? By definition, they have to have established position in order for it to be a charge. If two separate officials are really unsure on whether or not the defender had established position, how can you justify calling a charge? Boggles my mind, but like you said - Teddy V. is one who boggles the mind quite often...

 

[buck1973]

Is there any other conference in basketball where the officials are so well known? Every team in the conference wants to kill itself when they hear TV Ted, Showtime Eddie or Jim Burr are doing their game.

The Big Ten does not have its own officials. Those three also officiate games in other conferences and and their fans have the same reactions as us.

 

[LitlBuck]

After their plan for a last-second, tying shot went awry at Michigan State, Ohio State coach Thad Matta and guard Aaron Craft said that one blown play was not what lost the game.

Sure, some of that was to try to help sophomore Shannon Scott feel better. But some of it was true, too.

“Possessions at the beginning of the game are just as important as the possessions at the end,” Craft said yesterday.

In its first 10 possessions on Saturday night, Ohio State turned the ball over five times, helping Michigan State get away to a 13-2 lead. The Buckeyes came back quickly with a 15-0 run, but still, “We’ve got to find a way to start games in a better fashion and just take care of the ball,” Craft said.

Turnovers have been troublesome for the Buckeyes the past four games, not so much because of how many there have been but because of how many scoring chances they are costing a team having trouble scoring.

Ohio State averaged 10.3 turnovers in its first 13 games and 13.8 the past four. But it’s not the average that matters, it’s the “rate” — the percentage of possessions a team turns over the ball. The disparity there is far greater.

In their first 13 games, the Buckeyes had turnovers on 15 percent of their possessions. The past four games, two of which they have lost, they have turned the ball over 26.6 percent of the time — or more than once every four possessions.

“It does affect the game when there are not as many possessions,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said.

Ohio State has had only 60 offensive possessions, its fewest of the season, in each of its past two games, and has scored 56 points in each. It had nine turnovers in the first half at Michigan State.

“We made some errant passes,” Matta said yesterday. “We’ve got to be tighter with the basketball in terms of delivering it. We had a guy make the same pass he made three games ago. We showed him (then) and said, ‘You can’t throw this pass,’ and he did it again and it got stolen.”

http://buckeyextra.dispatch.com/content/stories/2013/01/22/scoring-drops-as-turnovers-climb.html

 

[bkochmc]

That charge/block call was horrible. If it is a bang/bang play, how can you give it to the defender? By definition, they have to have established position in order for it to be a charge. If two separate officials are really unsure on whether or not the defender had established position, how can you justify calling a charge? Boggles my mind, but like you said - Teddy V. is one who boggles the mind quite often...

I absolutely hate defending TV Ted, but he called a block on that one. The other official called a charge and overruled TV.

Now excuse me while I go clean my eyes with soap...