Ohio State clearly felt the lack of Evan Turner today as the Butler Bulldogs came out and secured the 74-66 win in Indianapolis. The Buckeyes found themselves twice in big deficits, one of 10 points, and the other of 17, but weren’t able to make the plays to steal the game from the Bulldogs.
The Buckeyes came into the game cold as ice. Big credit to Butler for taking Jon Diebler away. The lack of Evan Turner to draw attention has put Diebler in a position where he is now the focus of the defenses. This has forced other players to make plays, and early on it simply wasn’t happening. The Bucks kept it close in the early game, but Butler quickly moved out to a ten point lead about halfway through the first stanza, and it looked like it was quickly getting out of control.
Part of the reason the Buckeyes were losing control was due to the way the Buckeyes were playing defense. Ohio State came out of the gate running a 2-3 zone (which later switched to a 3-2 zone) and Butler made OSU look completely stupid for it. I don’t understand why Matta decided to run a zone against a team that had a lot of players that like to jack the 3 pointer. It seems like precisely the wrong decision, especially since Evan Turner was not the player that made the man defense go. Man defense requires good defense from every single player. Why would we suddenly go away from it now that Turner is down? The zone defense was so bad in this game that I kept having to count to make certain we had 5 players on defense. It looked like we were missing a man for the first 10 minutes.
Butler’s success on offense continued until 2 things occured. The first was the switch back to man defense with about 9 minutes left in the half. With the switch, the Bucks looked much more comfortable playing defense and suddenly seemed to be playing inspired basketball. That change made shooting much more difficult for the Bulldogs. The other change was the loss of Howard for Butler due to foul trouble. I believe that losing Howard did not effect Butler as much as the commentators would’ve liked you to think, especially with Hayward shooting better than he has all year so far (5-11 from the floor in the first half).
Once the defense switched for the Bucks, suddenly things started to turn around. The Bucks intensity on defense lead to good offense on the other side of the ball. The big momentum change occured with the Buckeyes down 28-24 with a couple minutes left in the half. Buford dribbled the ball into a Butler player just inside the 3-point arc with Lighty behind him. A quick dump pass gave the ball to Lighty wide open from the three which he promptly drained. That was a huge shot in a game that had been entirely controlled by Butler to that point.
Not long after, Lighty made a brilliant drive down low for another 2 points. He single-handedly took over the game, and I believe we were seeing Lighty really grow into the leadership role that we all thought was his to begin with. I think Lighty has been hampered a little bit by the presence of Evan Turner, as Turner takes over a game by himself Lighty didn’t think he had to step into the leadership role. Now with the lack of Turner, the need for Lighty to be a leader is much greater and I believe that he has finally realized it. Lighty ended the half with 4-5 shooting, including 1-2 from the three to lead the Buckeyes with 12.
The second half began much the same way the first had for Butler. They made good adjustments at halftime to find open shots against the OSU man defense and managed to close the 2 point halftime margin and even take a 4 point lead midway through the 2nd. The Bucks, however, managed to keep things close by continuing their offensive success from the end of the first half. The game suddenly began to look like a pair of heavyweights trading body blows. The only question that remained was who was going to be able to walk away from the fight.
Butler is a wonderful passing team. I have to applaud them for the fantastic pass on the fast break to Hayward to avoid a potential block by David Lighty. It was a sweet no-look dump off and I’m not even certain how the passer knew that Hayward was even there. Lighty had been directly between the two the whole way down the court. They also had a beautiful post pass over Lauderdale that was a great play call against the Buckeye’s defense.
The lack of Jon Diebler really hurt this Buckeye’s team. There are a lot of scorers and a lot of great players on this team, but when Diebler is sinking his shots it really takes this team to another level. Without having Diebler open at all (again, big credit to Butler for taking him away) absolutely killed ohio State’s offense.
The game essentially ended when Butler took a 17 point lead with about 4 minutes left. Ohio State valiantly tried to rally, making great defensive plays and finally finding Diebler a reasonably open look. With the score at 69-66 with 45 seconds left, the Buckeyes looked like they might have a chance, but poor fouls and good defense by Butler closed out the game and sealed the victory.
William Buford lead the Buckeyes with 20 points on 7-12 shooting. He also grabbed 7 rebounds, along with David Lighty who added 16 points on 6-14 shooting. Lauderdale and Simmons rounded out the double digit scoring for the Bucks with 12 and 11 respectively.
The Buckeyes next face Presbyterian on December 16th (Wednesday). You will be able to see that game on the Big Ten Network.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
