The Valparaiso Crusaders invaded Value City Arena only to be turned back in the second half by the Buckeyes who won by a final of 80-47. William Buford easily had the stat line of the game hitting 9-16 from the field, including 4-4 from long range, and scoring 25 points – and all after starting out missing his first five shots. Jared Sullinger also added his fourth double double of the season with 14 points and 13 rebounds in the win.
The Buckeyes started out slowly on the offensive end, struggling a little with Valpo’s man-to-man defense. As is tradition for this team they immediately began to convert turnovers into points. By speeding up the pace of the game, the OSU offense didn’t have to deal as much with the Crusader’s defense and found some easy points.
Of particular concern early was the Buckeye’s three point defense. While Valpo had a few misses, they were from relatively open shooters where the defensive hand came a few seconds late. A lot of this had to do with Valpo’s method of using screens to generate mismatches in the OSU defense. Once a slower player was forced to defend a guard, a single pass to the guard lead to a reasonably open look at the basket.
After the first timeout break, Coach Bryce Drew made a sneaky defensive switch. Realizing that OSU’s strengths were focused inside, and that the Bucks no-longer had excellent three point shooters, Drew began to employ a 2-3 zone scheme. Zone’s are particularly effective at preventing passes into the lane, while allowing shooters to come free more easily outside the arc. By doing this, Valpo was essentially begging the Buckeyes to beat them by shooting.
Part of what was keeping Valparaiso in this game was the poor shooting by the Buckeyes early. William Buford in particular struggled to get his shot going, missing his first 5 shots of the game through the first 13 minutes. When he finally did take his personal lid off the basket, the Buckeyes exploded on both ends of the court and began to open some breathing room on the scoreboard. Over the next two minutes of play, Buford went 3-3 and scored 7 points to lift the Buckeye lead to double digits.
A big concern for this team has to be the free-throw shooting this season. Very rarely did any of the Buckeye regulars miss both parts of a pair from the charity stripe. This year, however, it seems almost like the rule – even among players like Craft and Sullinger who were fairly proficient from the line. The best answer, and the reason why we may be so poor at 3-point shooting, is that our shooting form is not consistent. That’s usually the result when a player is working on their shooting and focusing on eliminating bad habits. When they’re early in the transition there tends to be a bit of muscle memory confusion, leading to even worse shots than normal.
Because of Buford’s work to open up the score, Valpo switched back to man defense and quickly changed the complexion of the game again. The Buckeyes were stymied by their inability to hit looks, open or otherwise, and the increasingly confident Crusader defense. At the half, the Buckeyes only held a four point lead, and that only due to the fact that the Buckeyes managed to get to the charity stripe 13 times while Valpo never managed to earn a free-throw.
Coming out of the break it was obvious that the coaching staff had torn into the team. There was a renewed effort on the defensive end, and the Bucks were making a better effort of getting Jared Sullinger the ball down low. The strategy worked wonders as Valpo went scoreless for the first four minutes while the Bucks were able to open up a double digit lead for the second time.
One other thing that allowed the Bucks to suddenly open a 20 point lead was the shooting. Players like Sullinger and Craft, normally not known for their accuracy from range, both hit three pointers to help the Buckeyes to begin to bury the Crusaders. As a team, the Bucks started out the half 8-8, a torrid shooting rate that few teams would be able to cope with.
Valpo wasn’t simply going to take that lying down. They began to finally open up their offense and keep pace with the Buckeyes. A large portion of the reason came down to the OSU players starting to slack off on defense once they had a comfortable lead. This is the usual mentality of young teams who get tired of keeping their foot on the pedal for entire games. Older players will often work to keep the everyone’s focus, which is one of those key leadership traits that we’re missing with Diebler and Lighty having graduated.
Surprisingly, the Buckeyes did not go particularly deep into their bench in this one. Evan Ravenel and Jordan Sibert both saw playing time in significant minutes, but Sam Thompson only managed to enter the game with 4 minutes left and most of the starters still on the court. He does look like his defense is improving every single game, and maybe we’ll get to see him come into the game against Duke next week.
Joining William Buford and Jared Sullinger in double digits for the Buckeyes were Aaron Craft with 15 and Deshaun Thomas with 12 for the game. The Crusaders saw only Jay Harris break that barrier with 18 points. As a team Valparaiso shot 19-56 (33.9%) form the floor and 8-23 (34.8%) from three, while the Buckeyes shot 31-60 (51.7%) and 6-16 37.5%) respectively.
The Buckeyes next face the Duke Blue Devils in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge on Tuesday, November 29th. You’ll be able to see that game on ESPN.
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