No. 21 Buckeyes Keep Rolling with Blowout Victory

After winning consecutive games over ranked opponents, Ohio State entered Tuesday night’s contest against the visiting Northwestern Wildcats having fought their way back into the Top 25.

The Buckeyes validated their recent rise up the rankings with a dominating 76-56 victory over the Wildcats who had no answer for Ohio State’s offensive attack.

Jumping out to an early 9-0 lead, the Buckeyes began the game with superior ball movement getting everyone involved early.

At the 13:33 mark in the first half; all five Ohio State starters had recorded a field goal as they lead 17-3 converting on their first seven field goal attempts. Six of the seven field-goal attempts were assisted as a result of the great ball movement.

To go along with their imposing offensive attack, the Buckeyes defense was causing the Wildcats fits on Ohio State’s way to a commanding 40-17 halftime lead much to the pleasure of Head Coach Thad Matta.

"I thought we got out to a good start, especially on defense, which opened up some things offensively,” Matta explained. “When you play a team like Northwestern, they do so many different things you never know what's coming. You try to play perfect, but you can't. Our guys did a good job of changing on the fly."

Changing on the fly they did holding Northwestern, the Big Ten’s top 3-point shooting team, to just 18.2 percent shooting from the field (4-22) and beyond the arc (2-11) while the Buckeyes shot 56 percent (14-25) from the field.

There would be no second half let down as Evan Turner kicked off the second half by drilling a 3-pointer to give Ohio State their largest lead of the game at 26 points.

A fairly evenly played second half saw Northwestern get within 18 points on a dunk by leading scorer John Shurna with 9:29 remaining, but a flush by Dallas Lauderdale put Ohio State ahead 71-46 as they cruised the rest of the way.

"I think we did well,” commented Turner. “Holding a team like Northwestern to 56 points is key. That's really big for us. They were a good team in both the first and second half."

Turner flirted with a triple-double leading the Buckeyes with 20 points to go along with 13 rebounds and 8 assists. Jon Diebler and Lauderdale rounded out the double digit scorers for Ohio State (14-5, 4-3) with 17 and 14 points respectively.

Shurna was the only bright spot for the Wildcats (13-5, 2-4) as he poured in a game-high 22 points on 7-of-10 shooting.

Ohio State will put their three-game winning streak and number 21st ranking to the test this Saturday as they travel to Morgantown, WV to face the 11th ranked West Virginia Mountaineers.

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