Delaware State fought hard through the game and attempted to keep the tempo as slow as possible but was unable to completely take the Buckeyes out of their game plan. Ohio State took advantage of their superior athletes to win the game 60-44.
The first 5 minutes of the game seemed to go Delaware State’s way. This wasn’t surprising, considering how their game with Arizona State had gone but it was still distressing to see. DSU played a very slow style of offense not unlike Wisconsin’s. This type of offense is designed to take as much time off the shot clock as possible before taking a shot. It’s extremely slow and deliberate and attempts to wear out the defense hoping for a mistake. Ohio State obliged a few times, and it allowed the Hornets to control the game tempo early.
Delaware State committed early to double-teaming Lauderdale to negate his height. It worked early as Lauderdale committed the mortal sin of dribbling the ball down low. That’s especially bad when the other players give up several inches on you. Lauderdale needs to realize that if he’s not close enough for the shot, he should dish it back outside to the shooters. We’re not dependent upon his scoring right now so he needs to not try to force it further down low. Back it out and post up again.
Early on, Ohio State couldn’t seem to figure out how to run their offense and it killed them. Hitting a wide open three does *not* count unless you get the shooter open through an offensive play. A great example of this was the two threes hit by Jeremie Simmons in the middle of the first half. On the first play, he just happened to be wide open and jacked up the three. He hit it, but it’s simple luck that he was open. The second three, the Buckeyes passed the ball around while Simmons moved around to lose his defender. When he received the pass in precisely the same place on the floor as the previous three, he was wide open again. This is the key difference between luck points and good offense.
The Buckeyes need to figure out their free throw shooting. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but it’s driving me up a wall. When you get a free opportunity for points you’ve got to capitalize every single time. I understand Lauderdale’s struggles, considering it’s in the great tradition of center’s to struggle from the line, but the deep shooters should hit these just about every single time. Kudos to PJ Hill for being able to hit his free-throws, incidentally.
There is one thing this team does extremely well is communicate both verbally and not. After a great steal by Jeremie Simmons, he floated it up near the rim for William Buford to drain the ally-oop. During the play, it looked like Buford had no chance to get there for the ball nor really realized that he needed to be there, and then suddenly he was slamming the ball home. It seems like communication problems with this team is very rare, and it’s a nice trait to have going into the Big Ten season.
Towards the end of the half, the Bucks started to find some success down low. Lighty drove the lane on one play where it seemed like he beat all 17 DSU players at once. There were also several sweet dump passes down low to Lauderdale for dunks that caught the Hornets completely off guard. The first was from a sweet no-look pass by Buford through the hands of 2 opposing players, and the last occured with just seconds left on the clock as Jeremie Simmons set up an ally-oop for Dallas and gave DSU no time to do anything with the ball before the half ended.
The second half began with a rough stretch early but the Buckeyes fought through it and began to stretch the lead a little. DSU’s defense seemed to give the Buckeyes a rough time of it as they played a tight man defense and prevented the shooter’s from getting any open looks. The Buckeyes didn’t help themselves much by continuing to struggle with their motion offense, but it seems like this team is not designed to play a slow offense and work towards an open shot. This team performs so much better on the fast break and on the quick dribble drive looking for quick passes to open shooters. This dependence on high tempo offense will kill us against Wisconsin as they will slow us down and completely take us out of our element.
This game is good experience for us to have, though, leading into that Wisconsin game. At least we’ll understand a little better how to improve before playing the Badgers. I would prefer to not play in Madison for the first Big Ten game, but at least everyone on the team has experience Big Ten play before, so it won’t be as big of an issue.
Delaware State continued to impose their tempo on the game right to the bitter end, making the second half feel like it was dragging on forever. It allowed them to stay in the game as long as possible, but given that Ohio State continued to trade baskets with them the entire half, it kept DSU from managing to make it any closer than double digits. Towards the last 3 minutes, the Buckeyes secured a 15 point lead and walked it into the finish line with a 16 point final.
William Buford led all scorers with 18 points on 6-10 shooting. He seems to have finally emerged from his slump (knock on wood) and is finally putting up the type of numbers he needs to for this Buckeye team to be successful. David Lighty (12) and Dallas Lauderdale (11) also broke double figures. Jon Diebler had one of the slower games of the season with only 3-5 shooting (2-4 from three) for 8 total points. He did, however, secure 7 rebounds to make up for the lack of scoring production. Buford, Diebler and Lighty all played the full 40 minutes of the game, and only Madsen and Simmons saw time off the bench.
The Buckeyes shot 59.5% from the floor and 35.3% from three compared to 47.4% and 33.3% for Delaware State. The 35.3% (6-17) three-point shooting percentage is just about the lowest for the Buckeyes all season with the exception of the Butler game where they shot 29.4%.
Ohio State next faces Cleveland State in Value City Arena on Tuesday (December 22nd) at 8:30pm. You will be able to see that game on the Big Ten Network.
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