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Men's Basketball Buckeye Tidbits 2007-08 Season

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DDN

OSU basketball on roll for Big Ten opener


Dayton Daily News

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Ohio State's men's basketball team opens the Big Ten season tonight trying to carry over last year's 16-game conference winning streak, including all three in the 2007 Big Ten Tournament.
Ohio State has won 13 consecutive regular-season league games, including six in a row on the road. The Buckeyes' last loss in conference play was at Wisconsin Jan. 9, 2007, in a battle of Top 5 teams.


Today, OSU faces an 8-5 Illinois team at Assembly Hall in Champaign at a good time.
After a slow start offensively, the Buckeyes found their shooting touch in wins over Presbyterian College, Cleveland State and Florida. The Buckeyes set a Value City Arena record from the field Dec. 15, knocking down 71 percent of their shots (35-of-49) in an 87-43 victory over the Blue Hose.



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Canton

OSU's Butler shows off basketball title ring
[FONT=Verdana,Times New Roman,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Buckeyes set to open Big Ten play tonight[/FONT]
Thursday, January 3, 2008
BY Mike Popovich
REPOSITORY SPORTS WRITER

COLUMBUS Jamar Butler wore his 2007 Big Ten tournament championship ring for the first time this season Wednesday.

The ring previously sat in a case in the Ohio State senior guard?s room. It will always have a special significance, but the eve of the conference opener seemed like an appropriate time for Butler to remind himself, his teammates and everyone else who the defending champions are.

?It?s Big Ten play now,? Butler said. ?You gotta show ?em.?

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Canton

OHIO STATE REPORT
Thursday, January 3, 2008
BY Mike Popovich
REPOSITORY SPORTS STAFF WRITER

HOMECOMING FOR TURNER Evan Turner will make his collegiate debut in his home state during tonight?s Big Ten opener at Illinois. The freshman guard starred at St. Joseph?s High School in Chicago and is the only Illinois native who plays for the Buckeyes. His last competitive high school game was an all-star game played near the Illinois campus. ?All the Illinois fans came out to see the players going there,? Turner said. ?They gave everybody else a standing ovation when they called out their name. With me, you could just hear a pin drop in the crowd.? One of Turner?s high school teammates is Illinois freshman guard Demetri McCamey. ?I talked to him yesterday,? Turner said Wednesday. ?We got out our constant remarks about our team.?

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Dispatch

Men's basketball: Big Ten play begins for OSU at Illinois

Thursday, January 3, 2008 3:23 AM
By Bob Baptist


THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH



Evan Turner said Jamar Butler kids him about the jewelry Turner wears. Butler broke out a piece of his own yesterday that Turner couldn't help but envy.
"It's real nice," Turner said. "I want one."
For the first time this season, Butler showed up in the Schottenstein Center wearing the ring that members of the Ohio State men's basketball team last year received for winning the Big Ten championship, among other accomplishments. It had been in a box in his bedroom.



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Dispatch

January 1, 2008

Something to keep an eye on

First of all, Happy New Year. I was just sitting around watching the Big Ten try to corral that SEC speed and thought I?d better climb back on the blog wheel. I?ve been remiss while enjoying the holidays in between helping fill the paper, but now the grind resumes. While my colleagues sample all New Orleans offers, I?ll be in and out of Champaign on Thursday, taking in the beauty that is I-70 and I-74 in winter.
You may have noticed a subtle change in coach Thad Matta?s substitution pattern the past two games. I haven?t gone back in my notes to see if he did it before the Florida game Dec.22, but I don?t recall it. In the last nine minutes against Florida, though, and again in each half against Maryland-Baltimore County, Matta went with a four-guard lineup, moving David Lighty to forward in place of Othello Hunter or Kosta Koufos and pairing Evan Turner and Jon Diebler on the wings.
The results were mixed. Ohio State and Florida played to a draw in the final 8:53. UMBC outscored the Buckeyes 32-26 in the final 8:18 of the first half and 5:57 of the game combined.
It?s worth noting, though, that when the Buckeyes went man-to-man in the last minute and a half, Hunter was on the floor with the four guards.
It?s probably not a lineup we?ll see a lot of in the Big Ten as long as the Buckeyes can stay in their big zone. But it will have its place. It makes the 2-2-1 press quicker and infuses the halfcourt offense with more penetrating ability, something the Buckeyes have lacked and which has kept them from getting to the foul line as much as they?d like. They shot 31 free throws against UMBC and made 26, with Turner and Jamar Butler combining for 19 of 21.
Matta said he waited to go ?small? until he was comfortable the Buckeyes could rebound well enough with only one player taller than 6-feet-6 on the floor. The guards have done a better job of that in recent weeks.
Another factor that could determine how much the lineup plays is how well Lighty and Turner take care of the basketball. They are one-two on the team in turnovers. If there are two aspects of the game Matta holds in highest importance, they are defense and ball security.
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Dispatch

OSU men's basketball: Some fans see vanishing act
Next three games for Buckeyes on Big Ten Network
Sunday, January 6, 2008 4:02 AM
By Bob Baptist


THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith will be able to watch the men's basketball team play its Big Ten home opener today from his New Orleans hotel.
More than 40 percent of the households in central Ohio won't enjoy that luxury.
Smith's hotel, 900 miles south of here, gets the Big Ten Network. Many homes within a few miles of the Ohio State campus do not. For those fans, they can buy a ticket to the game against Northwestern today in Value City Arena, figure out another way to see it or find something else to do.
"It's disheartening," Smith said yesterday from New Orleans, where the OSU football team will try to win its second national championship in six years Monday night.

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Canton

Big Ten notebook: Young Bucks make impact
[FONT=Verdana,Times New Roman,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Koufos, Turner, Diebler turn in strong play[/FONT]
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
BY Mike Popovich
REPOSITORY SPORTS WRITER

A new group of Ohio State freshmen is coming of age.

Greg Oden, Mike Conley, Jr., Daequan Cook and David Lighty helped lead the Buckeyes to their first national championship game appearance in 45 years last season. This year, Kosta Koufos, Evan Turner and Jon Diebler are striving to make an immediate impact.

Koufos, Turner and Diebler combined for 48 of Ohio State?s 62 points in Sunday?s win over Northwestern. It was the second time in eight days all three have finished in double figures.

Buckeyes Head Coach Thad Matta sees his freshman class getting better every day.

?They have a great passion for the game of basketball,? Matta said. ?They?re very coachable and their work ethic is very strong.

?The teams we have played, they?ve had to learn with their feet in the fire. We told them you can?t use the crutch, ?I?m a freshman. I haven?t done this before.? You have to go out and play. The guys we have who have been with the program have done a very good job of bringing them along and mentoring them to what?s happening.?

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Dispatch

OSU men's basketball: Workouts could pay off
Buckeyes hope to be in better shape for stretch run
Saturday, January 12, 2008 3:12 AM
By Bob Baptist


THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

When Dave Richardson took command of the strength and conditioning of the Ohio State men's basketball team two years ago, he ran the Buckeyes long and hard.
"Just kind of setting the tone," the former soldier said.
Four months later, he got his first look at how hard coach Thad Matta ran them in practice.
"Oh, man," he said, with empathy.
"It's unbelievable. I mean, when they get to the game, the game's easy."
So Richardson tweaked his regimen.
"I made the running in the preseason more intense but shorter ? not as much volume," he said.
It is one of several adjustments he and team trainer Vince O'Brien have made to have the Buckeyes playing stronger longer this season with a rotation that has relied on mainly seven players, chief among them iron-man point guard Jamar Butler.

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DDN

Buckeyes have some big tests on horizon

OSU will have its hands full in road clashes vs. Michigan State and Tennessee.

Associated Press

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
COLUMBUS ? No one is criticizing this Ohio State team for playing a weak schedule, that's for certain.
The Buckeyes have two games this week. The first is tonight at No. 11 Michigan State, perhaps the toughest venue in the Big Ten with fans seething to get back at them after they came in and stole games each of the last two years.


Then in a game that is hardly a respite from the rigors of the conference grind, the Buckeyes get to hit the road again on Saturday to face another vengeful crowd at No. 6 Tennessee.
Think the Volunteers will be looking past Ohio State to upcoming games against Kentucky and Georgia? Think again. The Buckeyes beat Tennessee twice last year, once by two points at home during the regular season and then again on a comeback from a 20-point deficit to take a heart-stopping one-point decision in the regional semifinals of the NCAA tournament.



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Canton

OSU men's basketball begins tough stretch
[FONT=Verdana,Times New Roman,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]OSU basketball notebook[/FONT]
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
BY Mike Popovich
REPOSITORY SPORTS WRITER

Life on the road certainly will not be easy for the Ohio State men?s basketball team.

Saturday?s 75-68 loss at Purdue only scratched the surface. Tonight the Buckeyes must face No. 11 Michigan State in East Lansing. An arguably tougher test comes Saturday when Ohio State visits No. 6 Tennessee.

?This is a unique stretch for us,? Buckeyes Head Coach Thad Matta said. ?We had something kind of similar earlier in the year when we played five games in 11 days. But some of those were at home.?

With Ohio State and Michigan State coming off losses, tonight?s game takes on added importance. The loser could find itself two games off the Big Ten lead by midweek.

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Dispatch

OSU Insider

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 6:40 AM
By Bob Baptist


THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Coming up: No. 11 Michigan State and No. 6 Tennessee
Where: East Lansing, Mich., and Knoxville, Tenn.
When: 7 tonight and 3:30 p.m. Saturday
TV: ESPN and CBS
Radio: WBNS-AM (1460), WBNS-FM (97.1)
The week that was

Making quick work of Iowa in a 31-point win Wednesday was seen as a chance for a team playing three games in seven days to rest its regulars, especially overworked point guard Jamar Butler, who was recovering from the flu. It didn't matter at Purdue on Saturday. The Boilermakers dogged Butler start to finish, wore him down, and no one stepped up for him down the stretch as the Buckeyes' 19-game winning streak against Big Ten teams came to an end.

The week ahead

When the schedule was released before the season, this week stood out like flashing lights at a railroad crossing. The Buckeyes have won two years in a row in the Breslin Center, where Michigan State is 139-10 since 1998, including 10-0 this season. And who expected the Spartans to come into the game off a 43-36 loss at Iowa? Tennessee, meanwhile, has been relishing another shot at Ohio State. The Vols lost twice to the Buckeyes last season, once on Ron Lewis' winning three in Value City Arena, the second by a point in an NCAA regional semifinal, when the Buckeyes rallied from 20 points down and won by a point when Greg Oden blocked a potential winning shot.

How good are they?

Unremarkable is probably the best description now. The Buckeyes' three Big Ten wins are against teams that are 1-11 in the conference. They are 1-3 against ranked teams and this week have road games against their first top-25 opponents since they were embarrassed at Butler on Dec. 1. "It'll be another gauge for our team and what direction we're heading," coach Thad Matta said. Ohio State fell to 24th in the Rating Percentage Index after the loss at Purdue.

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Dispatch

January 14, 2008

Toughness

That?s the word of the week.
The Buckeyes didn?t have enough of it at Purdue.
Will they have enough Tuesday night to win at Michigan State for the third year in a row? Winning in the Breslin Center, and silencing the Izzone, is all about toughness.
Purdue made it hard for the Buckeyes to run their offense Saturday, and they generally weren?t tough enough to run it well. When they did get a play run, they showed a maddening inability to finish scoring chances close to the hoop.
Two visions are in my mind, one a recurring one.
David Lighty reminds me of J.J. Sullinger his sophomore and junior years, when every drive to the rim was an acrobatic show. Like Sullinger, Lighty has a lot of extraneous motion at the top of his jump when he would be better served by merely going hard to the iron and either dunking it, laying it in or drawing contact and getting free throws.
Sullinger finally saw the light his senior year. Coach Thad Matta said he?s had the same conversation with Lighty.
?Be efficient,? Matta said. ?Romain Sato did that a lot when I was at Xavier. Get the ball up on the rim, get it high and give it a chance to go in.?
The other vision is of Evan Turner stealing the ball midway through the second half at Purdue and, instead of dunking what looked to be a halfway open chance, balancing the ball on top of his outstretched right arm, ostensibly for style points. Instead of scoring the basket and possibly drawing the foul as well for a potential three-point play, Turner was fouled, shot two free throws and made one.
Are some Buckeyes avoiding contact by going less than hell-bent to the rim?
?That went through my mind when we got home the other night. Are we avoiding it?? Matta said. ?I don?t think we truly are. (But) I think we can be a little bit more aggressive going to the hole. Going through guys is something we?ve got to do.?
No better time to start than Tuesday night at Michigan State.
?Take everything with an aggressive nature to the hoop,? Kosta Koufos said. ?You know you?re going to get fouled. They?re probably not going to call what they need to call. But we just have to fight through it and play ball.?
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