By all accounts, the dress rehearsal was successful and encouraging. Now the Ohio State men’s basketball team can engage in real Division I college basketball warfare, and the opener is hours away as the Buckeyes will host Delaware State tomorrow night (6:30 p.m. Eastern, Big Ten Network).
Head coach Thad Matta found much to like and more to dissect after his team took down Walsh University 90-63 in an exhibition game last week. That set the stage for the curtain to raise on the regular season, his fifth in Columbus and ninth as a head coach.
“I think it’s always exciting,” said Matta, who is 4-0 in first games as coach of the Buckeyes. “I’ll be honest with you, I look forward to opening practice night a little more than you do opening game night. But it’s the opportunity to see everything kind of come together and after 33 practices (and say) ‘Where are we?’
“You know from this point it’s on, it’s real bullets and away we go.”
Ohio State is coming off a 24-win season that culminated with a 5-0 postseason run to the NIT championship. However, starters Jamar Butler, Kosta Koufos and Othello Hunter have gone on to the professional ranks as well as valuable backup post man Matt Terwilliger. Also, the team lost athletic swingman Eric Wallace, who transferred to DePaul after one season in scarlet and gray.
That leaves just six scholarship holdovers – guard/forwards David Lighty and Evan Turner, off-guard Jon Diebler, point guard P.J. Hill, forward/center Dallas Lauderdale and center Kyle Madsen.
Delaware State (1-2) has holes to fill of its own, most notably the unexpected departure from the program of 6-6 senior Roy Bright, who averaged 19.1 points per game last season and was arguably the best player in the MEAC.
Donald Johnson, a 6-4 senior who logged 10.0 ppg last season, is picking up some of the slack by averaging a team-best 14.3 ppg so far. Six-foot junior guard Fred Bouie (10.3 ppg) and 6-6 junior forward Frisco Sandidge (34.0 minutes per game, 10.0 ppg, 8.3 rebounds per game) also have come to the fore. All three are threats from behind the arc. Johnson is shooting 36.8 percent from there and 92.3 percent from the free-throw line.
Delaware State was just 14-16 last year but 10-6 in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and is a contender for the league crown this season. However, there are obstacles – and lumps – to endure first.
The Hornets are embarking on a challenging trek beginning tonight at Dayton. They’ll come into Columbus on little rest and take on the Buckeyes then will head to Kentucky (Nov. 22), West Virginia (Nov. 25), Oakland University (Nov. 28) and Connecticut (Dec. 1) before heading home for the MEAC opener with Maryland Eastern Shore on Dec. 4.
Delaware State, which already has lost to Lehigh and Cheyney, also has nonconference roadies at Richmond (Dec. 6) and Notre Dame (Dec. 20). The team’s lone win was a 71-59 victory over Wilmington (Del.) in the Nov. 14 season opener.
Still, the Hornets enter the game with playing experience this season, which is more than can be said of the youthful Buckeyes. Ohio State enters its season opener as the only Big Ten team yet to log a game and will do so with five new scholarship players – center B.J. Mullens, swingman William Buford and guards Anthony Crater, Walter Offutt and Jeremie Simmons. A sixth, forward Nikola Kecman, will begin serving his 12-game suspension and will not dress.
As if that wasn’t enough freshness, OSU will shuttle down Lane Avenue and host the game at its old environs, St. John Arena, since Reba McEntire and Kelly Clarkson will be the attraction at the Schottenstein Center.
The Buckeyes defeated California at SJA in the NIT March 24 by the score of 73-56 and also took down VMI there last November, 90-57. However, half of this season’s squad has never played in the 13,276-seat building, leaving fans to wonder what is in store when the lights get bright.
Adding even another element to the suspense is that the 6-8 Lauderdale is coming off a shoulder injury that kept him out of the exhibition game. Lauderdale slightly sprained his left shoulder in a Nov. 2 scrimmage with Miami (Ohio) and wasn’t cleared to play until a couple days ago.
“I’d like to give him as much as he can,” Matta said when asked about Lauderdale’s availability for the opener. “He did some Monday, a lot yesterday, so I’m thinking he should be ready to go as much as we want him to go tomorrow. He thinks he’s ready for 40 (minutes) and I don’t know if he’s quite there yet.”
“I think he can play in the game and be effective,” Lighty added, “especially on the defensive end because he’s so intimidating down there with his long wingspan and leaping ability. But I don’t know about 40 minutes. He might be a little out of shape for that right now from not practicing. But I think he’s getting a lot better and he’s progressing.”
Ironically, Lauderdale’s setback came at a time when he was drawing raves from coaches and teammates as the most improved player on the team and perhaps the most dedicated Buckeye during the offseason.
“No. 1 it’s been an understanding of what he’s good at and what he needs to do,” Matta said of the strides Lauderdale has made. “I think the second thing is his overall physical conditioning is at a higher level. I think his skill level has developed more. I think that he’s looked and said maybe I didn’t play a ton last year but I was here and I have to provide as much as I can in forms of leadership, guidance, those areas. He’s done a very good job with that.
“Had the injury not occurred he was playing himself into a bona fide rotation guy and a dependable guy that we’d be counting on – not that the injury has changed my opinion of that. He’s been good the last two days of doing what he needed to do. I think his minutes should be pretty substantial.”
With his full roster at his disposal now, Matta could put Lauderdale in the first five or make a few moves from last week. But he wasn’t telling on the eve of the opener.
“I don’t know that yet,” he said. “We’ll see how today goes.”
Matta started Simmons, Diebler, Turner, Lighty and Mullens in the exhibition game with Walsh. The 6-5 Lighty played mostly as a power forward with Lauderdale out. Considering the results, Matta certainly could decide not to alter his lineup. However, Buford scored 17 points off the bench and already figures to be pushing Diebler. Plus, Crater arguably outperformed Simmons and could be better suited to start the game as a top distributor and defender out high.
“They both get in and do positive things so it really doesn’t make a difference,” Turner said of the Simmons-Crater debate. “I don’t think there’s a huge dropoff either/or with the substitutions. They’re two pretty good point guards and they help lead the way.
“They do pretty much the same things. The difference between Anthony and A.O. (Simmons) is one is a natural scorer. You trust both players with the ball. A.O. can really score so sometimes you give him a little more freedom in certain instances but they’re all about getting assists and running the offense. They’ll come down and play defense, they’ll come down and find the open man. What’s best for the team is in their mind so that’s all that really matters.”
Defense could become a premium against Delaware State, which allowed just 61.8 points per game last season.
“We’ll get another tape back tonight but we’ve seen a lot of the changing defenses – scramble, run, jump – so we’ll have to be sound on the defensive end and take away their transition but by the same token be smart on offense and don’t be careless with the ball,” Matta said.
The Buckeyes will try to do some clamping down of their own, most likely by sticking to the 1-2-2 zone they used in the win over Walsh. They continue to work on their man-to-man defense but Matta said, “I’m not sold on how effective we are with it just yet.”
So, for now anyway, it looks like the message going into the 2008-09 season is to try to play similarly to the dominating performance of last week.
“Pretty much it’s keep it up and learn from the mistakes that we made, going forward and not making those mistakes again,” said Lighty, the team’s unofficial captain.
Added Matta, “I think it’s continue focusing on offensive execution, shooting the ball, just the timing and understanding of what we want to get out of certain situations offensively. I think defensively it’s continuing to develop awareness off the basketball, continuing to develop our communication skills, and sustaining toughness and playing harder for longer stretches of time.
“We did some good things (against Walsh), but there were a few things that you say ‘What were we thinking?’ on a particular possession. But the shot selection was good and I think we did a good job of moving the ball and playing unselfishly. I mean, 21 assists to 10 turnovers, I’ll take that and run every night.”
