Ohio State 46 Butler 65 (Final)

[OregonBuckeye]

"I WILL EAT YOUR FACE IF YOU DON'T SHOOT BETTER!!!!"

[crazybuckfan40]

Us going to the NC in football is about the only thing that is keeping me from being so upset about the basketball team?I understand that we are a very young team, and we are going to make mistakes, turn the ball over, and go thru ups and downs. But it is just so hard to swallow, especially with the way that some of our veterans aren?t playing up to par?


Hunter ? Hunter played well at times, but he had some very bone head plays?He missed some bunnies, had about 3 or 4 bad turnovers, needs to stop slipping all screens, needs to not get underneath the hoop and missing out on rebounds that should be his, and bad posititing at tiems on the defensive end?Very frustrating game out of Hunter especially which should have been a game that he could of dominated inside, and while he got some easy buckets, he struggled moreso than what he should of?

Butler ? Probably one of Butler?s worse games that he has ever played here at the pg position?He turned the ball over probably about 5 or 6 times?Didn?t get the ball inside where it needed to go, he as a pg needs to realize that?Didn?t take good shots, didn?t attack the basket, I could go on, but such a bad game?

KK ? KK played a good solid game, missed some easy buckets he should of, out of positiong on defense, let there 6?7?? post guy dominate him on defense?Needs to get better when he sees a double team, he had I think 3 or so to?s out of the double team, had guys open outside for him to either get a repost or an open shot for them?

Twig ? Twig gave the minutes that he usually gives, Out of position at times on defense, actually set some good screens on offense?

Turner ? I thought Turner played a solid game on defense, and on offense in terms of attacking the rim, but he missed his 3 layup attempts and traveled the other time he attempted to attack therim?Turner is still really feeling his way, and needs to find his place in the offense, but his ability is there?

Diebler ? Thought he played decent, missed his open shots that were there, had some stupid to?s, but that block he had was awesome, played solid defense, and got out and ran in trasistion?Still lots to work on?

Lighty ? Had an up and down game, forced more than one three, when open he is becoming a very solid shooter, needs to attack the rim more, looked good the one time they got him the ball in the post with his post move?Struggling defensively in terms of rebounding from the backside, gets too far under the hoop, and turning the ball over too much.

Hill ? Glad to see him steal minutes?Nice job on top of zone?Running break, attacking the hole, really was stuck in a bad position at the end of the half, for his one turnover?Really thought Hill played solid, and think that if he can continue to steal 3-5 minutes a game or even more that will be very helpful?
Wallace/Lauderdale ? Why not give them some time?Don?t understand this?They seem to be too guys that bring spark with energy?Not saying they are the answer to the offensive problems, but maybe help out with some energy?

First half breakdown of scoring?
13 pts in first 5 minutes?All but Lighty?s 3 were inside? KK ? 6 Hunter 4
7 pts in 5 minutes?KK 2, Butler 3
5 pts in 6 minutes?Lighy 3, diebler in transition?Why stop going inside (1 attempted shot by Hunter missed turnaround)
KK with a shot with 2 minutes left, first time in 8 minute span Lighty nice jumper from free throw line

So basically we dominated early inside and then went away from it, either because we couldn?t get the ball there because we were turning it over or we were forcing some shots?

Next up is the 27 possessions we had in the second half?We didn?t go inside enough, we let the crowd get to us, we turned the ball over too much, forced too many shots, and didn?t knock down some easy shots that we had?

1. Second half went inside on first possession, to KK double team to?
2. Butler Drive, miss put back by KK?(2 pts)
3. No offense forced 3 winding down shot clock
4. Diebler to trying to pass inside to Hunter?
5. Lighty bad pass to?
6a. Got to KK inside and foul
6b. Deibler attacked rim, charging call
7. Deibler missed wide open 3 in transition
8. Hi-low KK missed, tipped rebound out, then got ball down low and finished (2 pts)
9. Deibler missed wide open 3?Rushing wasn?t set?
10. Hunter with a nice post up and score?(2pts)
11. KK with a miss on turnaround jumper, but Hunter with the rebound and putback (2pts)
12a. Pass inside to KK and a foul
12b. to by Butler?8 minutes in 8 points?
13. foul inside by Twig
14a. Butler missed 15 ft jumper, Hunter offensive rebound then foul
14b. to by Deibler 8 pts in 8 minutes?
15a. tipped pass out of bounces by Butler
15b. Lighty in post, scored on second chance(2 pts)
16a. KK tough shot in post, Hunter with offensive rebound
16b. Butler with a missed wide open 3?
17. Hunter with moving screen
18a. tipped pass out of bounces by Butler
18b. foul on Butler underdeath against KK, tweaked ankle
18c. KK with a post move in double team, good (2pts)
19a. Turner with drive to hole, missed bunny, ball OOB off Butler
19b. to from Deibler
20. Turner drive to the hoop, another missed bunny
21. Butler fouled, on drive, made 2 foul shots (2 pts)
22. Butler quick 3, missed
23. Butler fouled, 1 n 1 (missed first one)
24. Lighty made shot in paint (2pts)
25. Butler to
26. Deibler forced 3 missed.
27. Lighty missed 3, offensive rebound and miss

Defensively here is about all I have to say?

Nice first half, we closed out on shooters, well, we got lucky they weren?t hot as they were getting some solid looks?

Too many gaps in the middle of the zone, but we were giving them that to stay out on shooter.

Big guys too far under the hoop to rebound?rebounding is a joke?I think we need to extend the big guys at least up to above the blocks, when the long shots go up and they turn to rebound the offensive guy gets behind them and for all long rebounds they are too far under the hoop, and their positions also sucks at times?


Touchy fouls out top?Need to move feet instead of reaching?

6?1?? guys getting rebounds down low???

Matt Howard not very good, Hunter, KK What the hell?


And one last question?Why not put in Butler for last possession of first half??? That was the turning point in the game when we turned it over, IMO putting Hill in a bad spot to try and waste time then go one on one or get us into a set?I mean the kid has had how much time this season, don?t get me wrong I like seeing him out there some to give Butler a rest, but at times you need to realize that this is the time when you have to have Butler on the floor?Then they went down and hit that 3 and that was the turning point?

At least we have some cream puffs coming up which I hope can boost our game and then get ready for Florida and on into the big ten season?I am not jumping ship on this team by any means, just pointing out things that we did poorly and I really hope that we can improve?I know it is there I saw it against ?Cuse and at times in these games we have lost?

[BuckeyeTillIDie]

Things are looking rough for the basketball squad so far. Last year was such a rare event that we fans may all be a little too greedy now.

I'm not sure what is going on with the shooting and the [censored]-poor rebounding. It better get fixed or Ohio State may be in for quite a few more beat downs this year. I trust that Thad can get it turned around, but watching this team just seems strange. It is obvious that something is missing. There isn't that spark like last year.

[BengalsAndBucks]

Incredibly disappointing basketball game. Don't let the score fool you- we were only really winning for the first 5 or 6 minutes of the game, when we were pounding KK inside on every play. After that, it was just the fact that Butler was shooting so abysmally bad from 3 that they literally couldn't do anything but give it to their 6-8 freshman forward and tell him to own us. We should have been up 30 at halftime, not 10. Whenever a team that relies so heavily on 3's, and isn't great on defense, goes 1-16 from behind the arc there is no reason for us to be this bad.

This team has no offense. And by no offense, I mean literally we can't do anything on the offensive ends. I don't know if we have sets that we just dont run, or what. But our offense consists of Butler dribbling down to the top of the 3 point line, then passing to Lighty/Diebler on the wing. Lighty/Diebler hold/dribble the ball for a second, then dribble back up to the top of the key and handoff to Butler or pass back to Butler. Our wing's dont move well (at all?) off the ball. It would be different if we pounded KK inside every possesion, especially when he is being guarded by a 6-8 guy. But we got away from that at like the 14 minute mark of the first half.

No one on this team can really create their own offense. Evan Turner has the ball skills to, but he is a little shaky and doesn't have the confidence yet to where we can just put him into the game and say "create something for us." Again, Thad tried, and he even got into the paint a couple of times, but the shots were bad forces and he didn't really get a good look. Butler can drive ok, at times, but never gets a great look off of it.

Because of our lack of offense, we force way too many bad threes. We never get into any kind of offensive rythym. With the athleticism we have on the court, it really looks like we should be running on every possesion, but we dont. Instead we use up the entire 35 second clock, which would be ok except we never get decent shots out of it. Diebler or Butler or Lighty is forced to throw up a bad shot as the clock expires, just to get something up.

That said, our zone looks pretty good, especially out top. Diebler, Butler, and Lighty do a great job out there. Somehow their 6-8 freshman was abusing KK and OH in the middle, instead of making him shoot a tougher shot from there we let him drive on us and get easy layups or get fouled. We closed out on shooters very well until they started blowing us out, and we did a great job of forcing them to take very deep threes. I think our defense will keep us in a lot of games this year, if we can shore up the middle of that zone. In this game, against a team with shooters who played it like they did, I would have loved to see Thad switch to a 1-3-1 but you can't have everything in life I guess. Needless to say, our defense was not the problem in this game.

Butler- 6 shots is not enough for the senior leader of the this team. When the team was struggling so badly, he needed to step up and take some shots, he is a very good shooter. I just don't feel like he can take over a game if we need him to, like I felt that Ron Lewis could last year. He still plays great defense, and clearly this was one of his worst games and we can't judge him solely on this, but I don't see that killer instinct that he has to have.

Diebler- Shooting woes continued. I really felt like he got this fixed against UNC, I guess not. He seemed like he wasn't setting his feet properly before shooting, I noticed this a couple of times against UNC too, his feet are uneven when he goes up and it seemed to throw off his rythym. His best shot of the season was the deep 3 against UNC when he got the ball, stepped into his shot, and just drained it. He didn't do this on any 4 of his attempts from long today, instead using that akward footwork before going up. Hopefully Thad can get that corrected before B10 season.

That said, Diebler seemed like the only player for us who really understood that KK needed to be the man on offense. Every time he got the ball he tried to force it in to KK. Sometimes he would get it, KK wouldn't have good position, he would throw it back to Butler and then demand to get it back to try to force it in to him again. Also, that block he had on the breakaway was just incredible. Many people wont agree, but I really feel that by seasons end he could be our best player.

Lighty- He is a non-factor offensively. If given an open 3 he will normally drain it, but he can't create like we were counting on at the beginning of the season. He isn't the slasher that we need him to be. I wouldn't trade his defense for the world, and he a calm, steady player on offense, but he will never be the 3rd or even 4th scorer we need to compete for the B10 title or the NC.

KK- started the game very strongly. He dominated the first 5 minutes. Then I don't know what happened. I turned it on late and wasn't sure if they were playing zone the whole time of if they switched to zone after the first couple of minutes, but the zone completely stifled KK. He was having a very difficult time getting any kind of position, people couldn't get the ball in to him. Would have very much liked to see him extend their defense by hitting some shots from deep, but cant be disappointed with his offense.

His defense leaves quite a lot to be desired. I dont know how he repeatedly was abused by 6-8 freshman, and it wasn't only him, but he just seemed out of position all day in that zone. He was allowing the flex guy in the middle of the zone to come to him, and was getting destroyed. The middle of a 3-2 is always going to be weak, but we have to figure out a way to improve it or teams are going to abuse us there all game. His rebounding was yet again subpar, considering he was the tallest guy on the court by at least 4 inches (count me in the camp that thinks he is more like 7-2). Especially offensively, its amazing how he is always being blocked out but never learns and does the same thing on the other end. I can't tell you how many times someone was able to just step around one of our guys and grab a rebound, almost uncontested it seems. I realize we haven't had a lot of practices in the last 2 weeks, but this has been apparent since Syracuse and it just seems like we haven't even made any progress.

Hunter- would have liked to see him demand the ball more in the post. I really think that he can be a very solid offensive weapon for us if his touches and confidence level both go up a little, but we dont seem intent on improving either. His defense wasnt as good yesterday as it was against UNC, but it was still pretty good. He doesn't think very well out on the floor, like 40 said made some plays that made be throw things at my TV. He also slips way too many screens.

Why didn't we see more of the high-low game that worked so well against 'Cuse. They were in zone there for a while and we just passed around the perimeter. The high-low would have opened up the shooters for some open shots and allowed some decent offensive rebounding opportunities.

Hill- good to see him get some experience, he is a sophomore who is playing his first year of D1A ball and it shows. Good defense, wasn't terrible on the offensive end either, couple of turnovers but last night everyone had turnovers so can't single him out for that. He gave Butler some rest, and Butler looked like he sorely needed it.

Twiggy- the post guys cant play 40 minutes every night I guess.

Turner- so frustrating that he can't get something to drop. It really feels like every time Thad feels like we need some offense we stick Turner in and try to have him drive and create. Problem is he can't finish around the rim right now, hope that comes with experience and practice. Defense was decent, he reaches way too much as evidenced by his 3 fouls in 20 minutes.

Crazy number of turnovers, and we had an even greater number of offensive fouls (5 or 6?). Dont know if those are counted in the turnover margin or not, but that was ridiculous.

I still maintain that this team will be very good come February. If we can find some kind of identity on offense, our defense can keep us in any game this year. I really think we are best suited to be a pressure fast-break team, but unless Wallace especially improves to the point where Thad can put him in the game, we dont have depth.

In the second half when we looked like we forget where the basket was, we needed to produce some offense. So, idea- pull KK, put Turner in as the 3, Lighty as the 4 (we do that a fair bit already), and run full court man-to-man defense. I realize that we havent done it yet in a game, but it might create some offensive opportunities better than waiting 34 seconds to throw up a contested 3 IMHO. If it was working, we could put Wallace (who IIRC is a pretty decent defender) and Hill in to spell people, if not whats the harm we were down by a bunch anyways?

Overall, same story different game- too many turnovers, no rebounding, live and die by the 3. Butler should have beat us by 40 in that game, we did not look like a good basketball team.

Sorry for the essay, got a lot of thoughts/frustrations to get off my chest.

[DaytonBuck]

The sky isn't falling and this isn't a bad loss. Butler isn't a name per se but anyone that knows anything hoops knows that this a senior laden Butler team coming off of a sweet 16. This is one of the biggest OOC games we play this year. Disregard the crowd that thinks no one outside of the BCS conferences can play and that Northwestern is better than Memphis.

[osugrad21]

DDN

Butler basketball beats up Buckeyes, 65-46


By the Associated Press

Sunday, December 02, 2007

INDIANAPOLIS ? Butler no longer needs its best game or even its 3-point aces to beat up basketball's big boys any more.
They can rely on defense, confidence and a new post presence.


Despite an off-night Saturday, the 16th-ranked Bulldogs allowed only 16 second-half points and got a breakout game from freshman Matt Howard to rally past Ohio State 65-46. It was the Bulldogs' fourth straight win over a team from the traditional power conferences.
"We've been through it all before, last year and at the Great Alaska Shootout, so we know what it takes," guard Mike Green said. "It's not coming out in awe of these guys."

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