When Ohio State’s season ended in the Final Four last year, coach Thad Matta said he turned the page quickly and began thinking about what the team would need to make another run.
With Jared Sullinger and William Buford leaving the lineup and Deshaun Thomas the only proven scorer returning, he knew what it had to be.
The defense, he said, would have to be “at an all-time high” to help the Buckeyes not only stop opponents from scoring but also convert those stops, as well as turnovers, into easy baskets for themselves.
“When we’ve done that,” Matta said recently, “we’ve been very, very good.”
The Buckeyes needed much of the season to figure that out consistently, but the defense they played down the stretch of the Big Ten schedule and in the conference tournament this past weekend has given them renewed optimism heading into the NCAA Tournament.
They were ranked No. 4 nationally before the season began, dipped as low as 18th when they lost three of four games in early February, and rose again, to No. 10, last week after winning their last five games of the regular season, including at No. 2 Indiana. The final Associated Press poll, released yesterday, has the Buckeyes at No. 7.
“I just think we have a better awareness for one another,” said Aaron Craft, who, along with fellow guard Shannon Scott, was voted by Big Ten coaches to the conference’s all-defensive team. “There was definitely a stretch this season where we went a little solo and we weren’t really connected on defense, and it only takes one or two guys to really mess up the entire possession, especially playing great teams.”
One of the tenets of Matta’s defensive philosophy is that the players defend as if they are linked. He calls it “five guys connected,” with players moving as if joined by a string, with one’s move causing another’s, resulting in another’s. At any given time, one defender is guarding the ballhandler, another is helping or ready to help on the ballhandler, and a third has one eye on the ballhandler.
“When we play as one defensive unit — when we’re rotating, when we’re pressuring the ball, when we’re jumping the passing lanes, when we’re helping each other — we’re a great defensive team,” guard Sam Thompson said. “When guys aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do — when I’m not worried about the guy next to me — that’s when we have some trouble.”
