Indiana v. Ohio State, game 1: can the Hoosiers stop the talented Buckeyes?

by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Feb 10, 2010 10:00 AM EST

Ohio State Buckeyes

Current record: 18-6 (8-3)

Current RPI:40

Current Sagarin:19

Current Pomeroy:14

2008-09 record: 22-11 (10-8), lost to Siena in first round of NCAA Tournament

2008-09 RPI: 32

2008-09 Sagarin: 28
2008-09 Pomeroy:37

Series: IU leads 101-74

Last Ohio State win:1/6/2010 (79-54 in Columbus)

Last IU win: 2/26/2008 (72-69 in Bloomington)

Last OSU win in Bloomington: 1/31/09 (93-81)

Pomeroy scouting report

TV: 6:30, Big Ten Network

Blogs: Buckeye Battle Cry, Eleven Warriors

Just a week ago, Michigan State looked likely to run away with the Big Ten, but suddenly a five team race seems likely, and Ohio State, at 8-3, is in the hunt, in a four way tie (in the loss column) with MSU, Purdue, and, amazingly, Illinois. Evan Turner missed several games with a back injury, but returned against IU and not long after led the Buckeyes to an impressive comeback win at Purdue. IU's trip to Columbus was one of the ugliest moments of the Big Ten season and was IU's first true road game of the year. While Ohio State is more of an offensive-oriented team, the Buckeye defense, combined with Hoosier ineptitude, led to a 79-54 blowout loss for IU.

The Buckeyes are riding a seven-game Big Ten winning streak (their only loss in the last month was in a nonconference game at West Virginia) and haven't come close to losing to a sub-100 team such as IU. Ohio State's losses are to North Carolina, @ Butler, @ Wisconsin, @ Michigan, @ Minnesota, and @ West Virginia. The only disappointing loss on that list was the game at Michigan, and that loss came before Evan Turner returned to the lineup. Ohio State has only two road wins, but one of those was the amazing comeback at Purdue. IU, on the other hand, has played reasonably well at home in Big Ten play, with wins over Michigan and Minnesota and competitive losses to Illinois and Purdue, although IU was blown out by Iowa in what should have been the most winnable game of the bunch.

Simply, the Buckeyes are an astoundingly good offensive team. They rank #9 in the nation in points per possession and #3 in the nation in effective field goal percentage. They make 57 percent of their two point shots, 38 percent of their three point shots, turn the ball over only 17 percent of the time (#37 nationally). They don't crash the offensive boards, but why would they bother? On defense, OSU forces turnovers on 23 percent of possessions, plays excellent interior defense, and crashes the boards. The Buckeyes do allow their opponents to make 35 percent of their three point shots, so perhaps IU streaky shooters will have a chance. Here are OSU's stats:

			FG			3PT			FT			Rebounds			Misc
	G	M	M	A	Pct	M	A	Pct	M	A	Pct	Off	Def	Tot	Ast	TO	Stl	Blk	PF	PPG
Evan Turner	18	33.6	7.8	13.9	56.0	0.4	1.6	25.0	3.7	5.1	72.8	2.4	7.0	9.4	5.7	3.7	2.1	0.8	2.6	19.7
William Buford	24	32.3	5.2	12.1	42.6	1.3	3.6	35.6	2.3	3.0	78.9	1.3	3.9	5.2	3.3	1.8	1.0	0.2	1.9	14.0
Jon Diebler	24	36.0	3.8	8.7	44.2	2.9	6.7	43.5	2.3	2.6	87.1	0.3	2.7	3.0	1.7	1.2	1.2	0.1	1.8	12.8
David Lighty	24	35.2	4.5	9.0	49.8	1.2	3.3	37.2	2.6	4.2	61.4	1.5	3.2	4.7	2.7	2.7	1.7	0.5	2.3	12.7
Dallas Lauderdale	23	24.6	2.9	3.7	76.7	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.3	3.0	45.6	1.7	3.3	5.0	0.3	0.9	0.7	2.4	2.2	7.1
Walter Offutt	2	11.0	2.0	4.5	44.4	1.0	2.5	40.0	2.0	3.0	66.7	0.5	1.0	1.5	1.0	0.0	0.5	0.5	1.5	7.0
Jeremie Simmons	23	14.3	2.0	4.2	46.4	1.1	2.7	39.7	0.9	1.2	75.0	0.1	0.8	0.9	0.9	0.4	0.6	0.0	1.2	5.9
P.J. Hill	20	15.5	1.2	2.6	44.2	0.7	1.7	39.4	1.0	1.2	83.3	0.3	1.3	1.6	1.6	0.8	0.5	0.0	1.5	4.0
Nikola Kecman	11	5.8	1.0	2.1	47.8	0.2	1.1	16.7	0.3	0.5	60.0	0.3	1.0	1.3	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.2	1.2	2.5
Kyle Madsen	24	12.8	1.1	1.9	57.8	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.2	0.3	57.1	0.8	1.1	1.8	0.2	0.6	0.3	0.2	1.7	2.3
Zisis Sarikopoulos	10	7.8	0.6	1.1	54.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.5	20.0	0.9	1.1	2.0	0.2	0.4	0.2	0.6	1.4	1.3
Mark Titus	7	2.4	0.0	0.4	0.0	0.0	0.4	0.0	0.1	0.3	50.0	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.1
Danny Peters	7	1.7	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.0	0.3	0.0
Eddie Days	3	1.7	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.0

Look at the efficiency of those top scorers: Turner averages 19.7 points on 13.8 shots; Diebler averages 12.8 on 8.7 shots; Buford averages 14 on 12; Lighty 12.7 on 9. This is very good for a team that doesn't get to the line all that much. As IU's stats show, none of the active Hoosiers have anything approaching Turner's points-per-shot ratio (and yes, I wish we could delete Maurice Creek's stats from this list, beautiful as they are).

			FG			3PT			FT			Rebounds			Misc
	G	M	M	A	Pct	M	A	Pct	M	A	Pct	Off	Def	Tot	Ast	TO	Stl	Blk	PF	PPG
Maurice Creek	12	25.4	5.8	10.9	52.7	2.5	5.6	44.8	2.4	3.2	76.3	1.6	2.3	3.8	1.8	1.5	1.4	0.4	1.8	16.4
Verdell Jones III	22	30.2	5.0	12.3	40.4	0.7	2.6	26.3	4.3	6.0	72.0	0.9	3.1	4.0	3.3	2.6	1.0	0.5	1.5	14.9
Christian Watford	22	27.3	4.1	10.3	40.1	0.5	1.4	32.3	3.7	4.5	81.0	2.0	3.8	5.8	0.7	2.4	0.6	0.6	2.3	12.4
Devan Dumes	22	17.7	2.1	6.1	34.1	1.2	3.7	32.9	1.5	2.0	74.4	0.5	1.7	2.2	1.1	1.7	1.0	0.1	1.9	6.9
Jeremiah Rivers	22	29.3	2.2	5.8	38.3	0.0	0.2	0.0	1.9	3.5	53.8	0.8	4.1	5.0	4.0	2.9	1.5	0.8	2.9	6.4
Jordan Hulls	22	22.6	1.7	4.4	38.5	1.3	3.5	36.8	1.0	1.3	78.6	0.8	1.3	2.1	1.7	0.9	0.7	0.0	1.8	5.6
Derek Elston	22	15.0	2.1	4.7	45.6	0.3	0.8	41.2	0.8	1.5	56.3	1.6	2.3	3.9	0.4	1.1	0.8	0.4	1.9	5.4
Tom Pritchard	22	21.4	2.0	3.2	63.4	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.8	1.8	46.2	1.8	2.2	4.0	0.5	1.1	0.5	0.6	3.4	4.9
Matt Roth	2	5.5	0.5	1.0	50.0	0.0	0.5	0.0	1.0	1.0	100.0	0.5	0.5	1.0	0.0	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.5	2.0
Bobby Capobianco	22	10.6	0.8	2.0	40.9	0.1	0.3	28.6	0.2	0.7	33.3	1.2	1.0	2.2	0.4	0.5	0.4	0.2	2.1	2.0
Daniel Moore	19	6.4	0.3	0.5	66.7	0.1	0.2	50.0	0.6	0.7	84.6	0.2	0.3	0.5	0.4	0.4	0.4	0.0	1.0	1.3
Tijan Jobe	15	5.3	0.3	0.4	66.7	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.6	0.6	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.3	1.1	0.5
Bawa Muniru	14	3.3	0.1	0.4	33.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.4	33.3	0.4	0.4	0.7	0.0	0.2	0.1	0.4	0.6	0.4
Brett Finkelmeier	7	2.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.6	0.7	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Kory Barnett	7	2.0	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0
Steven Gambles	7	1.7	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.4	0.1	0.6	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.0

The Buckeyes present some concerns. IU is one of the worst teams in the nation in terms of having its shots blocked, and Dallas Lauderdale lives for blocking shots. IU, while improved from last year, still turns the ball over too much. Still, that is improving. IU has turned the ball over on 20 percent or more of possessions in 19 of 32 games this season, but only once in the last five games and only 4 times in 10 Big Ten games. Purdue, which forces turnovers even more successfully than OSU, didn't have much success in that regard against IU.

The Hoosiers have a chance, supposedly the 4th-best remaining chance for a win. But the effort will have to far exceed the performance at Northwestern.

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Comments

In response to the question you pose in the headline

No.

I believe that, when firing on all cylinders (as appears to be the case at this point in the BT season), tOSU is the cream of the crop. I think that they are a Final Four contender. The same could be said of Purdue, and we played a great game against them last week and had a chance to win. The Worthless Nuts present a bigger match up problem with Turner — you don’t have a comparable match up problem with Purdue (which is not intended to take anything away from Purdue’s talented players, and Hummel in particular).

I’d love to be wrong here. I think that the only way we do this is to improve the defensive intensity on the perimeter and make it difficult for them to hit from long range. Probably see a lot of zone tonight. Maybe a box-and-1 with Rivers/Dumes on Turner, although I don’t think we have seen that variation of a zone yet this season. I will (sigh) judge this game not by the won/loss column but by continued improvement in defensive intensity, rebounding, turnovers and free throws. I look forward to the day when we can start kicking ass again.

by hoosierdaddynow on Feb 10, 2010 4:20 PM EST reply actions

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