David Lighty was on fire and could not be stopped as the Buckeyes put down the feisty Cleveland State Vikings 72-59 tonight in Value City Arena. Lighty scored a career high 30 points in a game that really looked like the Bucks were just playing complacent basketball all night long.
Ohio State spent the entire game in the lead, but could not open a big spread against the Vikings. Every time the Bucks got hot and opened up some space, Cleveland State seemed to be right there to make it close again. Eventually, during the 2nd half, Cleveland State closed the margin to 4 at 40-36 and the Buckeyes decided that enough was enough. They widened the gap to as many as 15, but allowed it to get no closer than 9 the rest of the way out.
The first of two big stories for Cleveland State was the play of Norris Cole. Cole, the leading scorer for the Vikings and the man who hung 29 points on #6 West Virginia, scored precisely 0 points against the Buckeyes on 0-10 shooting, including 0-4 from beyond the arc. He did not get to the free-throw line, and added 6 turnovers to his stats to severely hamper his team’s effort in trying to upset the Buckeyes. Give big kudos to the defensive effort of the Buckeyes and big props for the scouting effort by the coaches on that one. A lot of his troubles stemmed from there.
The other big story for CSU was Jeremy Montgomery. Montgomery came off the bench for the Vikings and was only outshined in this game by David Lighty as Jeremy went for 25 points on 8-13 shooting (5-8 from three). It seems like every single team that plays the Buckeyes has one player who shoots well from three in most games but shows up against the Bucks and drains near everything from long range. Montgomery was that man this time around. That was a great job by him to get hot and try to make things happen for his team.
Also worthy of mention in this game was the play of Dallas Lauderdale, which I believed worthy of my “player of the game” picture at the top of the post. Even though Lighty had a career day scoring which was more than enough to win it, Lauderdale’s fantastic effort in all facets of the game impressed me at least as much. His stat-line in 29 minutes of play: 3-6 from the field, 8 rebounds, 2 steals, 5 blocks and 12 points. The most important one that deserves extra recognition: 6-7 from the free-throw line. Give him the photo ‘cause that’s just damn impressive.
In fact, the free-throw shooting effort by the Buckeyes today as a whole was much, much better as we averaged 74% today compared to the 65% we usually average. Lauderdale himself improved his average from 39.4% on the season to 47.5% with his shooting today. This is still way too low, but certainly a marked improvement.
The Buckeyes continue to play the starters for very long times. Lighty, Diebler and Buford all played 40 minutes today, along with PJ Hill earning 35 for himself. Lauderdale got 29, but only Madsen and Simmons came off the bench with 11 and 5 respectively. In fact, Simmons recorded a trillion and Madsen only put down a free-throw and grabbed a couple rebounds. I’m still surprised that Sarikopoulis and Kecman and several others aren’t earning more time on the floor, but I’m not seeing what Matta gets to see in practice (obviously) so perhaps he has a reason for playing only 7 (8 with Turner) deep.
Ohio State gets a restful 9 day stretch before facing off against Wisconsin in Madison on December 31st. That game will be seen on ESPN2 at 2 pm.
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