For the last game of the Global Sports Shoot-out, the Buckeyes welcomed the Ospreys of North Florida to Columbus. Ohio State struggled a little early but eventually opened up a comfortable lead on the way to a 85-50 win. Jared Sullinger earned his 20th career double double with 27 points and 13 rebounds, while Aaron Craft netted 3 steals and 5 rebounds with his two points.
The Buckeyes started the game struggling on the offensive end. William Buford missed his first two shots of the game on the very first possession and the Bucks came away empty handed from their first two possessions. OSU also missed its first four free throws, including two surprising misses from Aaron Craft. Finally, Deshaun Thomas opened up the bucket with a sweet, covered three pointer from the right wing.
The Osprey’s operated out of a man-to-man defense that managed to give the Bucks some trouble early in the game. Craft had a little difficulty feeding the ball down low, and Sullinger quickly became frustrated by the lack of touches he was getting. Give credit to UNF coach Matthew Driscoll for coming up with a great early game plan to stifle Sullinger in the paint.
Matta responded by bringing Ravenel in to play the five, and allow Sullinger to shift over to the four. Doing that gave Sullinger the ability to roam the court and find places to receive an open pass from the guards. It also gave an extra dimension inside the paint with Ravenel’s scoring and rebounding, and forced the Osprey’s to defend the OSU bigs a little differently. That strategy opened up the passing lanes down low and helped to spread out the North Florida man defense.
Despite Buford’s two early misses, the OSU offense was flowing through his hands. Will managed to score 10 points in the first ten minutes of the game on 3-7 shooting. Overall to that point, the Buckeyes were shooting a dismal 35.7% from the floor, quite opposed to last season’s near 50% nightly shooting. The Bucks will have to improve their shooting quickly or they will pay for it sooner or later – perhaps as soon as the matchup with Duke in about a week.
North Florida was having plenty of success against Ohio State’s man defense, particularly due to defensive breakdowns from the younger players. Particularly noticeable were mistakes by Shannon Scott and Deshaun Thomas allowing players to get around them at the perimeter and find an open look at the basket. It seems like some of the Buckeyes, Aaron Craft and Lenzelle Smith excluded, came into the game playing lazy on the defensive end. Craft and Smith were quite the exception as they used their hustle on defense to nag the UNF guards and grab several steals that they were able to convert into points on the offensive end.
Despite the close affair, the Buckeyes were only up five with Matta still managed to play 9 deep, including Sam Thompson (3 minutes), Evan Ravenel (4 minutes), Shannon Scott and Jordan Sibert (6 minutes). It seems that several players have started to earn Matta’s trust and get some deserved playing time in key minutes. It’s important to point out that Scott received 3 of his minutes late in the half after Aaron Craft had to sit with a pair of fouls, but that doesn’t negate the fact that Matta clearly believes he can play the point guard position in backup minutes at this level.
After the half, the Buckeyes came out with much more intensity and focus than they had in the first. In particular, the defensive intensity was much improved as the Osprey’s struggled to find open looks early on. Eventually, North Florida started to screen their shooters free, but by that point the Buckeyes had opened a substantial lead. The lead came together as the Bucks found plenty of points off turnovers and focused on scoring down low in the paint rather than trying long-range jump shots that simply don’t seem to fall for this team.
Matta rotated out the older players, putting Sullinger, Buford, and Craft on the bench in favor of Scott and the young guns. With the younger players on the court, North Florida began to chip away at the 30 point lead the Bucks had opened up. The Osprey’s took advantage of a number of ticky-tack fouls committed by the Buckeyes, and a couple of ill-timed turnovers caused solely by inexperience.
Amazingly, one of the Osprey’s big scorers, Andy Diaz, fouled out in only 9 minutes of play with two points. This was a huge loss for North Florida as one of their more consistent producers on the offensive end. Diaz was clearly attempting to do too much and forced the issue against OSU’s much better talent. Forcing things against better players nearly always leads to bad fouls, and Diaz absolutely paid for losing control of his emotions.
Interestingly, while Sullinger ended up leading the game with 27 points, he struggled for much of the game while Buford looked like he was going to go crazy on the scoreboard. The Buckeyes obviously adjusted on offense to get Sullinger more looks, and UNF adjusted to cover Buford better leading Sullinger to score near 20 points in the second half alone. Buford, on the other hand, struggled for his 3 second half points. Deshaun Thomas also scored in the double figures with 16 on 5-11 shooting. North Florida’s Parker Smith picked up 10 points as the only double-digit scorer for the Osprey’s today.
North Florida shot 40% (18-45) from the floor and 21.1% (4-19) from three in the loss, while the Buckeyes shot 46.7% (28-60) and 23.5% (4-17) respectively. Amazingly, the Buckeyes made it to the free-throw line an incredible 40 times, but made only 25 (62.5%) on the day. The Bucks also out rebounded the Osprey’s 44-31.
The Buckeyes next play the Virginia Military Institute Keydets on Wednesday, November 23rd. You’ll be able to see that game on the Big Ten Network.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
