Air Force head coach Dave Pilipovich sat down at the podium for a press conference and opened up his postgame remarks by posing an unexpected question to the room inside the bowels of the Schottenstein Center filled with reporters and television cameras.
“You guys want to talk about football?” Pilipovich asked with a smile.
It was just that kind of night for the Falcons. Their head coach wanted to talk about anything but basketball.
Ohio State never trailed in its 74-50 rout of Air Force on Tuesday night to climb back to the .500 mark on the season. The Buckeyes will be tested their next time out on the floor — Saturday at Connecticut — but Tuesday’s matchup with the visiting Falcons was anything but a challenge.
It was a defensive clinic put on by Ohio State in the first half against an Air Force team that simply couldn’t throw it in the ocean. The Buckeyes held the Falcons to just two made field goals over the final 14 minutes, 26 seconds of the first half. Additionally, Air Force had two separate scoring droughts that lasted over five minutes.
Ohio State ended the first half on a 24-5 run.
“I liked the fact that starting with the defense in the first half we really did the job that we were supposed to do and how we wanted to do it,” Buckeyes head coach Thad Matta said after the game. “I thought our guys did a pretty good job of being disruptive just in terms of doing what we wanted to do.”
The dominating performance was encouraging to see for Matta considering he has stated on numerous occasions this season he’s never quite sure what he’s going to get from his team each time it takes the floor. Ohio State has now won back-to-back games, though, after going through a four-game losing streak in the month of November.
Marc Loving led the way yet again for the Buckeyes, as the 6-foot-7 junior forward recorded his second-straight double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Freshman point guard JaQuan Lyle was steady with 12 points and five boards, while sophomore forward Jae’Sean Tate also scored 11 despite sitting the final 12 minutes of the first half on the bench due to foul trouble.
Ohio State also held a 20-point advantage in the paint even though it was playing without starting center Daniel Giddens for the second-straight game. Giddens missed Saturday’s game against VMI due to illness, but sat out Tuesday night due to a strained hamstring. Matta said Giddens has been battling since the Virginia game and his status going forward remains uncertain.
“It feels pretty good, but it feels better to know that we executed our game plan and we were able to follow through with that the whole game,” Loving said. “After watching film [of recent games], there’s not as many negative plays on the offensive end. Our pace is really going well and that just attributes to the work we’ve put in in practice.”
Stringing together a couple of wins and getting back to .500 was important to this young team; the confidence wasn’t exactly soaring during the four-game skid.
Matta, Loving and Lyle each said they’ve seen the team get better each time out — which every coach will say is the goal — but it’s important to remember the competition level in the last two games. VMI and Air Force are not very good teams.
Ohio State will face a much more significant test Saturday when it travels to UConn for its first true road game of the year. Kentucky is also on the schedule in just over one week. The Buckeyes feel they’re playing better, but know they’ll be tested even more in the very near future.
“I think we’ve gotten better each and every game this year,” Lyle said. “Like the Virginia game, I think we played really good. Obviously we didn’t get the outcome that we wanted, but we built off that and I think we’re a better basketball team. None of the freshman has ever played a true road game so that’s going to be a big test and hopefully we’ll be ready.”
