David Lighty

Welcome to our premium postgame basketball feature What We Learned.

Here we go following Ohio State’s 78-48 win over visiting Presbyterian on Wednesday.

We learned that this game was over within the first five minutes

The Buckeyes jumped out to a 14-0 lead over the Blue Hose and never looked back.

Ohio State continued to pour it on and a three-pointer from senior guard Jeremie Simmons gave OSU its largest lead of the first half – 53-21 – at the 1:26 mark. That ended up being the halftime score and if it was Little League baseball, it would have been a run rule.

The Buckeyes led by as much as 43 (70-27) on a tip-in by David Lighty at the 12:23 mark of the second half. They then proceeded to sleepwalk through the remaining portion of the game.

We learned you can’t learn much from a game like this

Presbyterian (2-9) is a really bad team. They are so bad that even their head coach is pointing to two years from now when they might have a chance to really compete at the D-I level. Not next year, two years from now! This is their head coach talking.

So, Ohio State basically defeated a JV team tonight, but at least the Buckeyes (8-2) looked good doing it.

We learned it was good to see Evan Turner walking around

The Buckeyes’ star junior – who broke two vertebrae in his back on Dec. 5 against Eastern Michigan – was in street clothes on the bench supporting his teammates. He appeared to be in very good spirits and even told OSU student newspaper The Lantern that he would return “in three weeks.”

However, players often underestimate the amount of time they will be out of action and Turner was originally expected to miss up to eight weeks. It’s only been a week-and-a-half. Chances are good that somewhere in between Turner’s prognosis and the doctors’ original prognosis is the truth.

As long as Turner is able to return at close to full strength by the end of January/start of February – which seems to be head coach Thad Matta’s target area – I think the Buckeyes will be fine this season. They are clearly a very good team when healthy; I think their ranking of No. 15 before the injury to Turner was pretty accurate. (They are ranked No. 18 now, but I don’t expect them to be ranked when Turner gets back. They’ll likely fall out of the rankings sometime in January if I had to guess.)

As long as they can keep their head above water while their star player is out, they’ll be fine in the long run because college basketball is all about getting hot late in the season.

We learned Lighty has elevated his game

With Turner out, Lighty knows a lot more of the responsibilities fall on his shoulders. He’s responded well thus far with 16 points in the loss at Butler last Saturday and 20 points (to go along with six rebounds, three assists and three steals) against Presbyterian.

Lighty seems to be embracing the role of someone who is never going to come off the court unless he is in foul trouble. Can he keep it up when the competition gets tougher? That’s the question.

We learned OSU has another easy game on the horizon

The Buckeyes won’t learn much in their next game either. They’ll host Delaware State on Saturday (4 p.m.; ESPNU) in what will likely be another rout.

The Hornets (4-4) should provide a better challenge than Presbyterian did, but it should still be a cakewalk for Ohio State.

The Buckeyes will then host Cleveland State on Dec. 22 before getting ready for the start of the Big Ten schedule at Wisconsin on Dec. 31.

Click here for our game story on the Presbyterian game.