Penn State and Ohio State earned the right to play each other for the B1G Tournament Title. The Buckeyes earned their 16th straight win over the Nittany Lions 71-60, a streak stretching back to 2004. OSU got the job done by carrying a late first half surge into a big lead early in the second before coasting it in to the finish. Talor Battle led all scorers with 22 points, while William Buford led the Buckeyes with 16. Sullinger completed his third straight double-double of the tournament with 15 points and 11 rebounds.
The Nittany Lions came into the game playing tough defense, very similar to the way they did against Wisconsin a couple of days before. The Defensive look gave the Buckeyes fits on the first few possessions, allowing Talor Battle to give the Nits the lead on his first two three pointers. It was apparant that Battle was trying to get his game going before Aaron Craft could enter the game.
The Buckeyes, however, were not going to stay down for long. William Buford and Jon Diebler put in trey’s of their own to keep pace, on top of a Lauderdale driving hookshot to give the Bucks the lead going into the first break. Penn State’s man-to-man defense, despite giving up a few outside looks, still did a fantastic job of limiting OSU’s offense on the interior. The Nits simply did not want to give up easy looks.
Not unlike the earlier games, Ohio State came in shooting the ball poorly. Even when PSU’s defense gave the Bucks an open look, they couldn’t knock the shot down. It made for a frustrating start to the game, but Penn State’s shooting – outside of Talor Battle – was 0-7 from the floor during the same span, allowing the Buckeyes to cling to the lead.
Eventually, Penn State began to commit turnovers in the face of the stifiling OSU defense. The Buckeyes managed to convert those turnovers into points. That took the lid off the basket and allowed them to jump out to a lead.
The Nits didn’t let it stay that way. Talor Battle led his team to a slow and steady comeback, capped by freethrows off a questionable foul call. It occured during a 6 minute period that the Bucks scored 0 points, primarily due to mental errors on offense, primarily turnovers.
With two minutes left in the first, a Lauderdale block gave Diebler a coast to coast transition layup to break the streak. The sudden change in momentum gave the Buckeyes the opportunity to rebuild some of their lead heading into the half. A huge Diebler three, made with Talor Battle’s hand in his face, gave the Buckeyes a six point lead in the closing seconds.
Both teams shot poorly, though not as badly as it seemed watching the game. The Buckeyes hit 38.5% (10-26) from the floor and 37.5% (3-8) from three, while Penn State hit 8-25 (32.0%) and 3-7 (42.9%) respectively. Both teams played a very even game in all the other stats, expressing how closely the game was truly played through the first half.
Ohio State rode the momentum of the first half straight into the start of the second. Diebler started off the scoring with another three pointer, keeping the Bucks hot while Lighty and Sullinger took over for him in building a double digit lead for the scarlet and gray.
As the second half rolled on, the Nittany Lions tried desperately to keep up with the Buckeyes. Ohio State was in no hurry to blow Penn State out of the gym, but they did do more than enough to maintain their 15 point lead. Nothing the Nits did seemed to be able to close the gap at all. In fact, the Buckeyes continued to slowly grow the lead as the clock ran down.
With 6 and a half minutes left, Penn State rained in two quick three pointers spaced by a Lauderdale dunk to start to creep back into the game. While the Buckeyes had seemed to be playing lackadaisical, the shots were made with a hand in the shooter’s faces. It was clear that Ed Dechellis had lit a fire under his team in the waning moments to try to get the last bit of effort out of them. The shots seemed to wake Penn State up and allowed them to hit two additional quick three pointers to close the gap to ten.
It’s a little nerve-wracking to see the Buckeyes continually piss away big leads late in games. It seems to happen almost exclusively against teams that are clearly inferior, suggesting a focus issue indicative of a young team. Considering our experience overall, including our 4 upperclassmen, means that this should simply not happen. This is a very frustrating trait that I hope does not hurt us during the Tournament.
This time, though, the Buckeyes refocused more quickly than they did yesterday against Michigan. They effectively used the under-4 minute TV timeout to rethink their offensive strategies, going back to the dribble drive with Craft and Diebler to get easy baskets late in the game. The switch was enough to take care of the lead and keep Penn State from making anything of their comeback attempt.
With the win, the Buckeyes have won 3 of their last 5 visits to the B1G Conference Championship, including winning the last two. All 3 of those wins have occurred in the last 5 years, demonstrating the incredible dominance Thad Matta has had on this conference tournament.
The Buckeyes ended the game with much hotter shooting in the second half than in the first. OSU hit 51.0% (26-51) from the floor and 43.8% (7-16) from three while Penn State shot only 39.3% (22-56) and 38.9% (7-18) respectively. The Buckeyes completely outplayed the Nittany Lions in the second half, expressing their dominance over a team that desperately wanted the win.
The Buckeyes, likely the top seed in the NCAA Tournament, will next play on either Thursday or Friday.
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