The Northwestern Wildcats played host this evening for a battle with the Ohio State Buckeyes, and gave the Buckeyes everything they could handle and some. Jared Sullinger put down the last second layup off an excellent Aaron Craft pass to win the game. Sullinger finished the game with another double double with 22 points and 18 rebounds, more in line with what he is capable of doing every night. DeShaun Thomas also secured a double double with 19 points and 10 rebounds, while Craft scored 14, and Lenzelle Smith put down 12. Drew Crawford of Northwestern led all scorers with 23 points, closely followed by John Shurna’s 22.
Despite discussions about the possibility of starting lineup changes to try to kick-start the Buckeyes better, Ohio State came out with their standard opening five. Matta clearly trusts his guys to get the job done, so we will just have to see if these guys can make the changes necessary to play elite basketball again. While we saw some steps in the right direction tonight, they have yet to demonstrate that they can close out a game – especially after grabbing a big lead.
Surprisingly, the Buckeyes came out strong in this one. Lenzelle Smith started things off on the right foot with a pair of baskets to go along with a trip to the charity stripe. Jared Sullinger also managed an early trip to the line, indicated that the Buckeyes were attacking the basket early. In so doing, they managed to open up a couple of long jumpers for Craft, who drained a three and an 18 footer from the left wing.
Northwestern wasn’t going to take it lying down. The Cats used a nice Drew Crawford dribble drive early to get the Buckeyes focused on defending the lane. Crawford was then able to use the collapsing defense to find open shooters on the outside. The strategy enabled Northwestern to hit three of their first six treys, and kept the game closer than it otherwise would have been with the Buckeyes playing such motivated basketball.
Unfortunately, William Buford picked up two quick fouls and was forced to sit with more than 10 minutes left in the game. As usual, Matta subbed him out for Sam Thompson, and simultaneously brought Shannon Scott into the game for Lenzelle Smith. Smith was not on the bench for long though as Scott quickly picked up two fouls of his own and was forced back to the sidelines.
The only thing keeping Northwestern in the game at the half was the play of Drew Crawford. Despite having two fouls Bill Carmody wisely left him in the game. He was the only consistent shooter for the Wildcats, hitting 2-3 from long range and 3-4 overall and scoring 8 points in the half. He was eventually helped out by Shurna when the Buckeyes were forced to slack off their defense. Shurna was mostly stymied with OSU focusing their defensive effort on him, but Shurna is too good to keep him out of the game for long.
Ohio State showed significant improvement in three different facets of their game. The first was their intensity and effort on the offensive glass. The Bucks picked up 21 rebounds (including 8 offensive) to Northwestern’s 5 rebounds (including only 2 defensive). Secondly, the Buckeyes passed the ball with more purpose and confidence, allowing them to find open shots. Finally, the Bucks began to move around on offense without the ball better, enabling the team to get better open looks and help each other out on offense.
These changes made the offense much more effective against the Wildcats. While Northwestern’s 1-3-1 zone isn’t exactly the toughest zone to beat, it was still nice to see the Buckeyes work hard on offense rather than standing around and waiting for things to happen. Players were able to produce better by moving around and forcing Northwestern into costly mismatches that allowed OSU to find better shots than they have during the last few games.
One thing that really helped the Buckeyes in this game was the sudden emergence of Aaron Craft’s shooting stroke. Northwestern too frequently left him wide open at the top of the key, allowing him an uncontested look at the basket for three. Ultimately, Craft hit 4-5 from three for the game, including hitting his first three straight. This is something the Buckeyes need Craft to do on a regular basis from here on out, and it was nice to see it show up for this game.
Despite being down by 10, Northwestern continued to battle it out. By increasing their defensive intensity, the Cats were able to force the Buckeyes into yet more costly turnovers – their bane thus far this season. With the Wildcats slowly closing the gap, the Buckeyes began to sink into panic mode. DeShuan Thomas and William Buford both jacked up ill-advised three pointers early in the shot-clock that they couldn’t connect on.
Thankfully the Bucks began to refocus and returned to attacking the basket down low. In particular, they managed to start feeding Sullinger again allowing him to draw a couple of quick, easy fouls. With OSU discovering success in the paint, they continued to get the ball down low in other ways, including finding Buford down low for a pair. The strategy allowed the Buckeyes to maintain a scant 10 point lead on the Wildcats with Shurna and Crawford playing a much better game than in Columbus.
With under four minutes to play, the Buckeyes were demonstrating yet again that they can’t seem to put teams away. Northwestern made a series of well-timed baskets, including answering a DeShaun Thomas three with one of their own, to close the gap to five. They then took advantage of a series of poor Ohio State mistakes, including a Lenzelle Smith travel with 41 seconds left, to give themselves a couple of last second chances to tie up the game.
That chance turned into reality with 7 seconds left on the clock when Alex Marcotullio drained a three pointer to knot the game up at 73.
The Buckeyes had an opportunity though, and they made the most of it. The Buckeyes inbounded the ball to Craft, the most consistent shooter of the game, who found an open passing lane to Sullinger in the paint for the quick two. With only seconds left on the clock, Shurna lofted a half-court three pointer to try to steal the game, but it clanged harmlessly off the rim at the buzzer.
The Buckeyes shot an improved 29-58 (50%) From the floor and 6-19 (31.6%) from three, while Northwestern responded with 26-52 (50%) and 13-27 (48.1%) respectively. The Bucks drastically outrebounded Northwestern 44-18 for the game, including picking up 20 offensive rebounds. The Cats took advantage of a 16-7 turnover difference, however.
The Buckeyes end the regular season against the Michigan State Spartans in East Lansing on Sunday, March 4th at 4:00 PM EST. You’ll be able to see that game on CBS.
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