Kyle Madsen defends Kalin Lucas

Ohio State may need to be known going forward as the Road Warriors of the Big Ten.

The ninth-ranked Buckeyes went into one of the toughest places to play in the country, Michigan State’s Breslin Center, and pulled out a critical 74-67 win over the 11^th-ranked Spartans Sunday afternoon.

OSU won its fifth straight Big Ten road game and the Buckeyes (21-7, 11-4) got back into the Big Ten race. OSU likely needs to win its last three games and hope somebody knocks off Big Ten-leading Purdue (23-3, 11-3) down the stretch.

“I think this says we’re a pretty good basketball team and those are tough places to win,” said OSU coach Thad Matta, who notched his 250^th career win as a college head coach. “This place today was electric. I think if you look at the places we have had to play this year like West Virginia and Butler, there is nothing they have not seen.”

The Buckeyes almost had to go into battle without standout point guard Evan Turner, who was battling cold and flulike symptoms. Turner came through and played the whole 40 minutes, posting 20 points, 10 rebounds and six assists to lead the Buckeyes.

“I got a call Saturday morning at 6:59 in the morning and it said, ‘Turner is sick,’ ” Matta said. “We got him in and he saw the doctors. When I came in, he was sleeping in the locker room. The biggest thing was he hadn’t slept because of the head cold and the flu symptoms.

“I asked him yesterday. I said, ‘Hey, man, this is what I need from you. You’ve got to come out on the practice floor. We’re going to cover some 5-on-0 stuff and just smile.’ Sure enough, he did it. We went for 40 minutes and we got him on the medication.

“We got up here last night and he laid in the bleachers while we shot. Then afterwards, he went to his room and he slept all the way through. He did a tremendous job of battling through it.”

Turner was only 6 of 17 from the floor, but hit 8 of 11 at the foul line in playing the full 40 minutes. He had 16 of his points in the second half as the Buckeyes held on at the end for the win.

“I haven’t shot in a couple of days,” Turner said. “I was just trying to get my rhythm back. I was just pacing myself and trying to help my team win.”

When asked about his illness, Turner said, “I was really congested. My head was throbbing. I was getting really cold and then really hot. I was having a hard time breathing and getting stuff out of my chest. I just couldn’t sleep. My body is just achy.”

William Buford added 17 points and 10 rebounds for OSU. David Lighty scored 13 points and grabbed nine rebounds, while Jon Diebler had 12 points. Dallas Lauderdale had eight points and eight rebounds for the Buckeyes.

Diebler was asked about the chance to stay in the Big Ten race.

“Everybody wants to win the Big Ten,” Diebler said. “We have to take care of our business first. We learned from the Purdue game. We kept our composure. We took their first punch and we settled down, made some shots and made a run ourselves.”

Durell Summers led MSU (21-7, 11-4) with 16 points, while Chris Allen and Draymond Green each had 11. MSU guard Kalin Lucas finished with nine points and eight assists after connecting on just 3 of 13 shots from the floor.

“The game plan was to run and run and run, but I don’t think ran too much,” said MSU coach Tom Izzo. “We just weren’t pushing it. I don’t know why.”

The Spartans have a chance to redeem themselves next Sunday when they visit Purdue.

“It is very disappointing for us,” Izzo said. “But we’ve been disappointed before and bounced back. We’re basically still in the same position we were in. We knew we had to go down to Purdue and win to have a chance to win the conference anyway.”

OSU led 39-26 at halftime and moved up by as many as 14 early in the second half. But the Spartans went on an 11-2 run to grab a 62-61 lead on a jumper by Summers with 4:04 left.

But OSU answered with seven straight points as Buford hit two free throws, Turner made a jumper and Diebler splashed a huge three for a 68-62 lead with 1:44 left.

“When you get to this stage, the 21^st of February and you’ve got two great teams playing, a lot of it comes down to somebody making a big play,” Matta said. “Jon did a great job of spotting up. I think it was Evan who found him. That was a big shot for us.”

MSU twice got as close as four after that point, but Turner was 4 of 6 at the foul line and Lighty made a pair to help OSU hang on to the lead.

Buford had 13 of his points and Diebler scored nine in the first half as the Buckeyes jumped on top 39-26 at the intermission. The Spartans went six minutes, 10 seconds without a field goal and ended up just 33.3 percent (9 of 27) from the floor.

Summers had five points early as MSU went up 10-4 with 15:41 left in the first half.

The Buckeyes then embarked on a 19-2 run – holding MSU without a field goal for 6:10 at one point – to go up 23-12 with 8:16 left in the first half. Turner fed Lauderdale for a jam before Buford rebounded his own miss and scored. MSU’s Garrick Sherman scored inside to put MSU up 12-8.

But the Buckeyes reeled off the game’s next 15 points to complete their run. Lighty rebounded his own miss and scored, Buford hit a three off a Turner assist, Lighty splashed a three, Buford converted a Lauderdale steal into a breakaway layup, Turner buried a jumper in transition and Diebler connected on a three off an assist from Lighty on the secondary break. That dagger put OSU up 23-12 with 8:16 left.

A rebound basket by Buford made it 31-19 with 3:15 left. Another Diebler three gave the Buckeyes a 37-25 lead with 55 seconds left. Finally, Kyle Madsen hit a baseline jumper on a pick-and-pop play with three seconds left, giving the Buckeyes their biggest lead of the half at 39-26.

“The defense there from the 14-minute mark down, they really stepped up the energy and seeing what we needed to see,” Matta said. “Offensively, we didn’t shoot a great percentage but I thought we took good shots and did a great job of executing.”

Ohio State had led 40-28 at halftime at West Virginia on Jan. 23 before the Mountaineers rallied for a 71-65 win. Matta knew the Spartans would make a second-half run.

“We told our guys at halftime, ‘You’re playing one of the best teams in the country and they are going to make a run at you,’ ” Matta said. “Sure enough, they did. They showed composure and kept it together and did a good job down the stretch of finding guys and making their free throws.”

Lighty completed a three-point play to give OSU its biggest lead of the game at 14, 46-32, with 16:02 left. MSU chipped away and got the lead down to five after a three by Allen and a lob for a layup by Delvon Roe, trimming the OSU lead to 49-44 with 11:57 left. A Lucas driving layup made it 53-50 with 9:11 left.

But Turner hit a pair of free throws and a jumper in the lane to give OSU a 59-51 lead with 7:14 left.

This is where the Spartans went on their 11-2 run to briefly grab the lead. Summers was the star during this spree. He hit a three to cut the lead to three. Then, after Turner lost the ball on a drive and it skitted to MSU’s Lucas, Summers went in for an emphatic jam to cut the margin to 61-60 with 5:07 left.

The Buckeyes were hanging by a thread here. Coming out of a timeout, Buford shot an airball on a three-point try. Allen missed a three, but teammate Morgan grabbed the rebound and found Summers for a wide open jumper to give MSU its only second-half lead at 62-61 with 4:04 left.

The lead was short-lived as Buford was fouled on a shot attempt in the lane. His two free throws allowed OSU to go back up 63-62 with 3:45 left.

Summers then missed a three-pointer. Morgan lunged out of bounds to save the miss, but it went right to Turner. He came down and eventually stuck a 12-foot jumper for a 65-62 lead with 2:54 left.

Lucas then tried to drive into the lane for the Spartans, but Turner blocked the shot and it went off Lucas out of bounds to Ohio State.

The teams traded missed shots before Turner drove the lane and dished to Diebler on the right wing. His three-pointer staked the Buckeyes to a 68-62 lead with 1:44 left.

“Evan drew the defenders and I was fortunate to knock it down,” Diebler said. “He had been doing it the whole game. When he’s doing that and we’re knocking down shots, we’re hard to beat.”

The Buckeyes held strong at the foul line and the Spartans were unable to get any closer than four after that point.

“They really brought it in the second half,” Diebler said. “That’s college basketball and it’s a game of runs. We’ve grown from the West Virginia game. In that game, we kind of let it slip away. Tonight, we came out with some poise and we got the W.

“I don’t think we were ever worried. We still had complete confidence in what we were doing offensively.”

When asked what this win proved, Turner said, “I guess we can win on the road. When we go into tough environments, we are mature as a team. They took the lead, but we came right back and regained it. That was huge. We needed that run, especially on the road. We needed everything we could get.”

Matta said this was one more tribute to his ailing star. The coach was asked if this effort proves that Turner is the best player in college basketball.

“I know he is to me,” Matta said. “I know that Evan Turner is a great basketball player … I know that he is special. He is a tremendous player and he is real important to me.”

Also Notable

* MSU still owns a 58-50 advantage in the all-time series with the Buckeyes. MSU still leads 36-16 in East Lansing. The Buckeyes pulled off just their fourth win in 18 visits to the Breslin Center, which opened in 1990. OSU’s other wins at Breslin came in 1992, 2006 and 2007.

The Buckeyes have now won three of their last five trips to East Lansing.

* Matta's record is now 250-84 in his 10th season all-time as a head coach. He is 148-53 in his sixth year at Ohio State. Matta's .735 winning percentage over 200 games is tied with Fred Taylor for the best in OSU history. Matta is 65-33 (.660) in Big Ten games, also the highest percentage all-time at Ohio State.

* Under Matta, OSU is now 26-33 against ranked opponents, including 5-5 against ranked teams this season.

* OSU won its fifth straight Big Ten road game following wins at Purdue, Iowa, Indiana and Illinois.

* Matta is now 6-6 against MSU as the OSU head coach.

* Turner now has 1,314 points for his career, passing Jamar Butler for No. 23 all-time (1,313). He earned his 23rd career double-double. The Buckeyes are 16-7 in those contests.

* MSU dropped to 13-2 at home this season. MSU, which dropped its last home outing to Purdue, had not had consecutive home games since losses to Northwestern and Penn State last season

* The Buckeyes stay on the road by visiting Penn State (10-16, 2-12) Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. (Big Ten Network). OSU defeated Penn State 75-62 on Feb. 3 at Value City Arena.