In their only meeting for the season, Ohio State traveled to Evanston tonight to take on the Shurna-less Northwestern Wildcats. The Bucks survived a serious challenge from the boys in purple winning 58-57 after Northwestern missed the last second shot. Sullinger’s 21 points led the game to which he added 8 rebounds and 1 of each in assists, steals and blocks. With the win, the Buckeyes improved to 22-0, tying their start in the 1961-’62 for the second best in OSU basketball history.
The Wildcats came out of the gate without team leader John Shurna, who suffered a concussion in their previous game. Even without him, Northwestern seemed perfectly capable in keeping up with the Buckeyes on the defensive end. The defensive effort early on changed a number of OSU shots that kept the Bucks from jumping out to a big lead. With the way the Wildcats were shooting on the other end, it was fortuitous for them as they were only able to sink a single basket in the first five minutes.
In the early going, the game felt like the Buckeyes were just looking for the opportunity to explode on Northwestern. There were only two reasons the Wildcats even remained close early on. The first was an foul on Aaron Craft on a three point shooter, which resulted in three made free throws. The second was the traditional slow-it-down style of the Princeton offense that limited OSU’s possessions, while the Wildcat defense made those few possessions as difficult as possible.
As Northwestern settled into their offense, things began to become more difficult for the Buckeyes. Wildcat players found holes in the OSU defense late in possessions allowing them to score easy points. As Northwestern closed the gap, and the Buckeyes went on a six minute scoring drought, you could tell the Bucks were getting frustrated.
Particularly brutal from the Wildcats defense was a nice adjustment to the question of how you double team Sullinger. Whenever Sullinger got the ball down low, Carmody brought down the defender that stood behind Sullinger, preventing Sully from seeing the easy outlet pass. The strategy worked surprisingly well in cutting down Sully’s hot shooting, as he went 3-3 to start, but 0-5 following the adjustment. The defensive strategy was particularly impressive, and says a lot about Carmody as a basketball coach.
The Bucks responded with a fantastic adjustment of their own. Recognizing that Sullinger was getting doubled, and the shooters were being tightly covered at the arc, Matta changed up the offense. By having his perimeter players drive the lane, it would force the Northwestern defenders to back off the OSU shooters and open up the three. The first open look came quickly for Aaron Craft, who drained the shot to regain the lead.
At the break, the Buckeyes had shot particularly poorly from beyond the arc – a testament to the Northwestern defense. OSU only took 4 shots from three and hit only 1, compared to 11-22 (50%) from the floor. On the other end, Northwestern shot equally poorly from three, hitting 3-12 (25%) and 8-22 (36.4%) from the floor. Surprisingly, the Bucks only held a two point lead over the Wildcats, primarily to the slow-it-down style and tough defense of Northwestern, and the Kitties 3 board advantage in rebounding.
Also surprising, despite the strategy that Northwestern employed to take Sullinger out of the game, Jared was the only player to make double digits in the half, scoring 10 points on 4-9 shooting. The next closest was Aaron Craft’s eight on 3-4 coming off the bench. Northwestern’s best scorer was Mike Capocci with seven points on 2-4 shooting.
The Bucks came back with some great adjustments on offense. The first look was a great open shot from Lighty on the right wing, a play where Sullinger found the open look out of the double team. Unfortunately, Lighty missed that shot, but it forced Northwestern to stop crashing to the paint. The result of that were two quick baskets, one each for Lauderdale and Sullinger, to open up some breathing room for OSU.
The game was suddenly blown open by the Bucks after taking some time to establish their offense. Before Northwestern could blink, Ohio State had a 12 point lead having gone on a 14-4 run to open the half. The changes to their offensive strategy began to open up shooters all over the floor, particularly Buford from close range. It also allowed Sullinger to make things happen under the basket as Northwestern couldn’t simply take Sully out with the double team.
It wasn’t long before Northwestern got a window to crawl back into the game. An intentional foul – a good call by the official – by Lauderdale as he elbowed a Northwestern player in the chin gave Northwestern a 7 point run. The kitties did it on 2 straight three pointers split by a single made free throw on the intentional foul. The run put Northwestern back in the game down only five with plenty of time on the clock for the game to go either way.
Northwestern took advantage of a number of missed OSU free throws going down the stretch. With the game close, and the Bucks desperately needing points, the missed free throws were getting painful, especially as the Wildcats began sinking their three pointers again. With three and a half minutes left, Northwestern regained the lead on yet another three pointer. Jon Diebler, however, responded quickly with his first three of the game to give the Bucks a two point lead with time starting to become precious.
The Buckeyes were suddenly imploding. After a great shot by Thompson to tie the game at 57, Craft promptly threw the ball away trying to get it to Diebler beyond the 3 point arc. The pass was clearly lazy and impatient meaning that Craft should have known better. By failing on that possession, it gave Northwestern the ball with a minute left on the clock and the chance to make this game tough for the Buckeyes.
A fantastic steal with 20 seconds left by Lighty under the basket, reading a play that Northwestern had run repeatedly, gave the Bucks the ball with the game still tied. Running without calling a timeout, Diebler dished the ball down to Sullinger who was fouled on the shot giving him a pair of free throws. Unfortunately, he missed the first, but made the second with 3 and a half seconds left on the clock setting Northwestern up for a critical last shot attempt.
Crawford took the last second shot from midcourt. He missed it, giving the Bucks the one point victory.
For the game, the Buckeyes shot only 2-8 (25%) from three – continued proof of the tough Northwestern defense – and 21-37 (56.8%) from the floor. Northwestern responded with 20-50 (40%) from the floor and 9-29 (31%) from three. Sullinger’s 21 points was joined by Aaron Craft’s 13 and William Buford’s 11 in the double digit catagory. Northwestern had only Michael Thompson’s 16 and Mike Capocci’s 11 in turn, though it was clearly enough to nearly take the Buckeyes out.
The Buckeyes next face the Michigan Wolverine’s in Value City Arena on Thursday, February 3rd at 7:00 PM Eastern Time. You’ll be able to see that game on ESPN.
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