Diebler drives at Gatens

Even though it was a Sunday, it was just another day at the office for Ohio State All-American candidate Evan Turner.

Turner matched his career high with 32 points and also had seven rebounds, five assists and four steals in leading the 13^th-ranked Buckeyes to a workmanlike 68-58 win over Iowa before 15,223 Sunday at Value City Arena.

“It is cool to see the ball come through the net,” said Turner, who was 12 of 22 from the floor and 8 of 11 at the foul line for the Buckeyes. “For that moment, you feel unstoppable. You feel like you can almost do anything. You’re attacking and you’re not being attacked. Anytime you can be the aggressor, that’s a good thing.”

Turner followed up a 27-point, 10-rebound performance in Wednesday’s win over Penn State with this gem against the Hawkeyes.

“If you look at Evan’s performance today, he made some special plays out there,” said OSU coach Thad Matta, whose team closed out a perfect 3-0 Big Ten homestand. “This ranks up there as one of the best I’ve seen with what he was able to get accomplished. I thought his pace and ability to read situations was tremendous.”

The Buckeyes led by five points at halftime and by as many as 14 in the second half, but struggled in putting the game Hawkeyes away. In fact, Iowa had the ball down 55-46 with five minutes left and had three chances to cut it to six. But the Hawkeyes misfired on three straight three-point attempts.

Turner corralled the defensive rebound on the last miss, raced into the frontcourt, executed a crossover dribble to lose a defender and laid the ball in to put the Buckeyes up 57-46 with 4:16 left.

“Thank God they didn’t make that shot,” Turner said. “We were only up by nine. If they had made one of those, we would have only been up by six. Once the ball came off the rim, I saw Dallas (Lauderdale) going to the rim. He is a big guy and I used him as a trail to get to the rack. I just had to lose one guy and that’s what I did.”

Matta added, “He was coming down the floor and I was saying, ‘Hold it. Hold it.’ Then I was saying, ‘Go, go, go!’ He laid it in. Dallas ran the floor and they kind of surrounded him and then Evan got them on the crossover.”

Ohio State (18-6, 8-3) won its seventh straight Big Ten game and earned a regular season sweep over Iowa (8-16, 2-9). The Buckeyes are in a three-way tie for second in the Big Ten, one game behind conference-leading Michigan State, and control their own destiny in terms of the Big Ten title.

“It is wide open and that’s why you have to take care of business on your home court,” said OSU guard Jon Diebler, who chipped in 12 points. “It wasn’t the prettiest win, but we won. This late in the season with the race how close as it is, you have to take care of business at home.”

Turner added, “I have faith in this team to do anything. We control our own destiny. We decide what goes on. If we stay focused and play Ohio State basketball, we can do anything.”

Matta likes what he sees as his team embarks on a stretch with four of the next five games on the road in the conference, beginning with Wednesday's game at Indiana.

"It is a lot easier said than done," Matta said. "As we told the guys in early January, stay the course. We wanted to keep the focus on us and on getting better. To their credit, they did a good job of listening to what we were saying.

"We are proud of the position we're in, but we know there is a ton of basketball still to be played."

William Buford had nine points and nine rebounds for OSU. David Lighty added nine points, going 9 of 10 at the foul line.

Much has been made of OSU’s lack of depth and that was proven again Sunday as the Buckeyes only used six players in the win. Turner, Lighty, Diebler and Buford all played the full 40 minutes. Backup guard Jeremie Simmons has been bothered by an eye injury. But Matta said it was a coach’s decision as to why Simmons and fellow backup P.J. Hill never checked into the game.

The Buckeyes won despite shooting 44.9 percent from the floor (22 of 49), including just 15.4 percent on three-pointers (2 of 13). OSU made up for it by shooting 81.5 percent (22 of 27) at the foul line. And, OSU only committed seven turnovers in the win. Meanwhile, the Buckeyes got 20 points off 14 Iowa turnovers.

Iowa used a deliberate tempo and made some timely three-pointers -- the Hawkeyes finished 8 of 20 (40 percent) behind the arc -- to stay in contact with OSU. The Hawkeyes got a team-high 16 points from Eric May, while Cully Payne and Aaron Fuller each had 11 points and Jarryd Cole added 10.

Ohio State led most of the way in the first half before settling for a 32-27 halftime lead. Turner had 12 of his points in the first half for OSU. Iowa stayed in the game by hitting four of its five three-point shots in the first 20 minutes.

Turner had OSU’s first five points by rebounding his own miss and completing a three-point play. But Iowa grabbed a 10-9 lead as May buried a three from the right wing in transition with 12:23 left in the half.

Turner answered right back with a driving layup to put the Buckeyes back up 20 seconds later. The lead widened to 15-10 after Diebler had a layup off a Buford steal and Turner made a turning jumper on the baseline.

Turner got the lead out to seven when he had a steal and jam to make it 19-12 with 9:13 left in the half. Iowa did not wilt, though, May hit another three and had a steal and jam to cut the lead to 22-19 with 5:31 left. The Hawkeyes got it down to two at 26-24 on a three by Gatens  with 3:42 left in the half.

But OSU closed strong. Buford converted a Turner steal for a jam with 59 seconds left and, after Iowa’s Fuller had a rebound basket with 20 seconds left, Turner spotted Madsen for a baseline jumper with four seconds left and the Buckeyes went in up 32-27 at the break.

The Buckeyes opened the second half on a 9-2 run to widen the gap to 12. Turner started it with a foul line jumper 19 seconds into the half. Cole then had a jam for the Hawkeyes. Buford then made a pair of free throws, Turner followed with a jumper off an inbounds pass and Diebler hit a three off a pass from Buford on the secondary break as the Buckeyes moved on top 41-29 with 16:37 left.

Lighty gave OSU its biggest lead at 14 points with a pair of free throws that made it 47-33 with 12:55 left. But Iowa battled back and got the lead under 10 after a three-pointer by Payne and two free throws by Fuller to make it 51-43 with 7:41 left.

Turner answered with a turning jumper on the baseline and a driving layup for a 55-43 lead with 6:44 left. After Iowa’s May hit another three to cut the lead to nine, Turner collected a defensive rebound, went coast-to-coast and used a wicked crossover dribble to get free for a layup that made it 57-46 with 4:16 left.

For good measure, Turner splashed an 18-foot jumper from the top of the key for a 60-47 lead with 2:35 left.

May had a three and Payne had a layup as Iowa again got inside 10 at 60-52 with 1:25 left. But Turner made a pair of free throws for a 62-52 lead with 1:20 left. Gatens’ jumper cut it to 62-54 with 1:05 left, but Turner answered with two more free throws for a 64-54 lead with 1:01 left.

Gatens’ two free throws made it 64-56 with 37.5 seconds left, but Turner made another pair for a 66-56 lead with 37 seconds left. Lighty made a pair of free throws for a 68-56 lead with 17.1 seconds left. May’s jumper with 7.1 seconds left capped the scoring.

Also Notable

* Turner matched his career-high of 32 points, set Jan. 12 at Purdue. He was asked afterwards if he considered this to be his best game of the season.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I missed a lot a shots and I just missed a lot of shots. I don’t think so. I kind of like my triple-double games. Those games allowed my teammates to score equally as much as I did.”

Turner passed John Havlicek and Larry Siegfried to move into 26th place on OSU's all-time scoring list with 1,239 points.

* At center, Lauderdale was limited to 18 minutes due to foul trouble. He never attempted a shot and ended up 2 of 2 at the foul line for two points and added one rebound and two blocked shots.

His backup, Kyle Madsen, played a career-high 22 minutes and added four points and four rebounds.

“Kyle is so cerebral out there,” Matta said. “I never worry with Kyle making the wrong read. I love him to death. You know what you’re getting with him.”

* OSU won its fourth consecutive game against Iowa and has now won six of the last seven meetings with the Hawkeyes. Iowa still leads the all-time series with a record of 73-67, although OSU leads 44-25 in Columbus. OSU is now 6-4 against Iowa in VCA.

* OSU improved to 15-0 this season at VCA. With three home games left, Ohio State can match the school record for the best home mark of 18-0 set by the 2006-07 team.

* At home against unranked opponents, OSU is now 85-2 overall under Matta.

* More than 20 former Ohio State captains were on hand Sunday to be recognized during the annual captains weekend celebration. Jim Remington (1951) will travel from California to be part of the festivities. He was the longest-serving captain on hand, while J.J. Sullinger and Matt Sylvester (2006) were the most recent captains to attend.

* Ohio State visits Indiana (9-12, 3-6) at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. The game will be televised by Big Ten Network. The Buckeyes downed IU 79-54 on Jan. 6.

* Click here for the box score from ESPN.com. Click here for Dave Biddle’s What We Learned column.

Postgame Videos

Here is video of Matta’s postgame press conference:

Here is video of the postgame press conference with Turner and Diebler: