If this is what the future holds for No. 18 Ohio State without Evan
Turner, then the Buckeyes have a lot of work ahead of them.
Jon Diebler scored 12 points, including two 3-pointers in a
14-0 run to open the game, and Ohio State beat Presbyterian 78-48
on Wednesday night.
But in the second half, the Buckeyes (8-2) were outscored
27-25 and appeared lost at times against an extremely young team
playing man-to-man defense for the very first time.
"If you just look at it, that's their first time ever playing
man-to-man and they hold us to 27 points, what does that say about
us?" said David Lighty, who led the Buckeyes with 20 points. "It's
just us being mentally tough enough to go out there and execute
like we have in practice and don't let them control what we do."
Turner, one of the best all-around players in the Big Ten,
broke two bones in his lower back on Dec. 5 after his hands slipped
off the rim during a dunk and he fell to the court. On Wednesday
night he sat on the bench in street clothes, cheering and joining
in the huddles.
"He was saying stuff the whole game, especially the second
half, just telling us we have to pick up the intensity," said
Diebler, Turner's roommate. "It was good to have him there."
Turner, who was averaging 18.5 points, 11.4 rebounds and 6.0
assists, is expected to miss up to eight weeks, although he hopes
to return after five or six at the most.
The Buckeyes shot 63 percent from the field and had just four
turnovers in the first half, but shot 41 percent and had seven
turnovers in the final 20 minutes.
"The first half we did a good job of being in more of an
attack mode and the shots were falling," coach Thad Matta said.
"But the second half we just weren't as sharp as we needed to be at
both ends. We're a team that our margin for error is not as high as
one might think. Therefore, we've got to take a look at what we
didn't do and try to get better at it."
William Buford added 11 points and Dallas Lauderdale 10 for
the Buckeyes.
Walt Allen had 13 points for the Blue Hose (2-9), who were
paid $75,000 to come up from Clinton, S.C., for the lopsided loss.
"Obviously, I want to win but there are moral victories when
you play the 18th-ranked team in the country with six freshmen, two
sophomores and a junior," Presbyterian coach Gregg Nibert said.
The Blue Hose are in the midst of a five-year transition and
will become a full-fledged member of NCAA Division I in 2011-12.
Ohio State had lost 74-66 at No. 22 Butler on Saturday in its
first game after Turner was sidelined.
"As I talked to our guys Saturday after the (Butler) game,
we'll see what kind of men we are, team we are, in how we come back
out and play Wednesday night," Matta said. "And I thought to start
it they were pretty effective."
The game was decided in the opening minutes, with
Presbyterian failing to even hit the rim let alone make a basket in
the opening 3:20.
The only previous time the teams met two years ago, the
Buckeyes scored the first 16 points. They rattled off the first 14
on Wednesday night while the Blue Hose missed their first four
shots and had five turnovers before finally getting on the board on
Jay Reynolds' wide-open inside shot 5:13 into the game. Over the
same span, the Buckeyes were 5 of 8 from the field including two
3-pointers, both by Diebler.
The Buckeyes shredded the Blue Hose zone to lead 53-21 at
halftime, and Nibert reluctantly shifted to the man.
"I didn't have enough faith in playing man-to-man against
them with such a young team," he said. "At halftime we were left
with no other answers because they had 53 points and we couldn't
have done anything any worse. So we tried man-to-man."
After the Blue Hose scored the first two points of the second
half, the Buckeyes ran off 17 of the next 21 to build a 70-27 lead.
Still, the Buckeyes, despite the starters playing most of the
way, mustered just eight points over the final 12:24.
"I'm not a yeller or screamer, I'm all laid back and that
sort of thing," Matta said of his postgame comments to his players.
"(But) they have to understand that we need to be doing what we do
for 40 minutes. As I told them, you look at the two losses we've
had this year (Butler and North Carolina) and we've had letdowns
throughout the course of those games. It wasn't as efficient as it
needed to be tonight."
