Buckeyes Too Much For Spartans…Again
Izzo begs ref for help due to talent mismatch
Look out, this team is starting to put it all together. OSU featured a balanced attack and a huge day on the offensive glass to defeat Sparty 63-54 in the Breslin Center. The win stopped MSU’s 14 game home winning streak and gave the Buckeyes their seventh straight victory.
Leading 42-41 with 9:29 left, OSU went on a 13-5 run to take a 55-46 lead with 5:06 to go. Ron Lewis had seven points in the decisive run with a dunk, two free throws and a big three-ball while Othello Hunter scored four points after grabbing offensive rebounds. Shortly after a Drew Neitzel jumper made it 55-48 with 4:33 left, Coach Matta went to a 2-3 zone for reasons unknown and Neitzel promptly responded with back to back threes sandwiched around a Hunter putback dunk to cut the lead to 57-54 with 53 ticks left. Smartly, OSU went back to man and MSU missed their last four field goal attempts (2 threes) while the Buckeyes hit all six of their free throws as the Spartans were forced to foul. OSU closed the game on a 6-0 run to post the nine point victory.
The Buckeyes took a 26-21 lead at the break as Oden produced 11 points, 7 rebounds (6 off) and 2 blocks while MSU coughed up 10 turnovers. Goran Suton kept MSU in it with his own monster first half with 12 points (5-6 FG) and 7 rebounds against Hunter and Ivan Harris. The halftime lead could have been larger but OSU shot just 2-11 (18%) from distance and managed just one field goal in the final 8+ minutes of the first half after taking a 21-13 lead on a Mike Conley jumper with 8:33 left.
When it was all said and done, OSU placed four in double figures led by Oden’s 16 points (11 reb). Lewis finished with 11 while Conley and Jamar Butler scored 10 apiece. OSU shot just 38% from the field and only 62% (15-24) from the line but used 16 offensive rebounds to get some easy putbacks and committed just 7 turnovers. The D blocked 9 shots (Oden 5), forced 12 turnovers and held the Spartans to 35% FG shooting. Neitzel put up 21 second half points to keep it interesting but besides Suton’s 16 points no other Spartan scored more than four.
Notes: Just a question, really…If Izzo is such a great coach then why is their only underneath-the-basket inbounds play a dangerous 60 feet heave across mid-court to Neitzel? We only stole it once, but there’s something to be said for actually forcing a team to defend inbounds plays underneath the bucket…Lastly, Donnie Gray established himself as the worst ref in the conference with yesterday’s performance. Two highlights include calling Oden for travelling as he was being mugged on the low block with OSU leading 23-18 and then calling Oden for a phantom moving screen just two posessions later. Was it a coincidence that the two worst calls of the game were shortly after fellow ref J.D. Collins hit Izzo with a ‘T’? I think not.
Good point about MSU’s inbound plays from underneath the hoop. I wonder what Izzo saw or what made the team go to that so much.
Also, is it just me or is Hunter getting better and better with each game? Butler’s back int he mix now, too.
MSU used that same long inbounds play against us in the first game, as wel…strange..
Hunter is definitely improving…He’s got some moves and just as important, he makes 76% of his free throws…his work on the offensive glass was huge yesterday…he also defended Suton much better in the 2nd half…
That is a simple answer…we have struggled with finding players off the inbounds open and have had two 5-second calls, one in each OSU game because of it. And Izzo got the T on the worst call in the game, Raymar Morgan was hacked under the hoop by Greg Oden and there was no foul call. The two travelling calls were correct…he shuffled his feet. I was at the game in the Izzone in the first row, I saw it pretty well. The refs did make some poor calls both ways other than those though. Conley and Butler were both called for weak touch fouls, and some missed hack calls under the hook on the Buckeyes and one big over the back very early on Oden. OSU is the better team enough said, it is hard to win when one player has to drop 25-30 to keep it close.
Starting to look very business-like dropping decent teams. A thing of beauty. Like I stated the other day Oden is going to get piped on the road in every game. I guess that’s better than O’brien’s players getting calls because the refs feel bad that OSU was the only D-1 school to recruit them.
Mike,
I will give you one of those walking calls on Oden because he does have a tendency to “over-gather” himself as he prepares to jump and he has been whistled for travelling numerous times because of it. That said, on one of the walking calls he was clearly being probed and/or frisked by Suton and instead of calling the foul, Donnie Gray called a walk.
It’s nice to hear from a member of the Izzone. We Buckeye fans are jealous of the home court advantage the Izzone creates while spacious Value City Arena produces one of the weakest crowds in the history of mankind.
Thanks for stopping by and dropping some comments.
Thanks Chris. We take pride in supporting our team especially this year because it is needed more than usual. I was proud of the Izzone at that game because 45 minutes before the game the whole section was packed in full and already harrassing the OSU players. I was also shocked at the weakness of the students when we played OSU, once Neitzel started to light it up other than his yelling and court pounding, I think a pin drop could have been heard. I hope that someone steps up and calls them out because we responded to being called out early this year. OSU was clearly better in both games, but I am not going to back down from saying that MSU put up two damn good fights. Hopefully it is going to become a good rivarly soon because it has a lot of potential…and I know Matta is praying not to see Neitzel in the Big Ten Tourney haha. Good luck the rest of the year.
Also I hope the selection commitee looks at those two games and how we have stuck with just about every team we played except for two games (Indiana and Purdue). It would be a shame to see us not get into the tournament after such good showings and just falling short.