NCAA Tournament Preview:Buckeyes prepare for tough matchup, will count on home cooking

Ohio State vs Siena - Time and TV: Fri., March 20, 9:40 p.m. ET*, CBS
 * = Approximate Time. Game starts 30 minutes after the end of Louisville's first-round game.

The Ohio State Buckeyes can thank their lucky stars that they were placed in nearby Dayton for the first round of the NCAA Tournament. They'll need to use geography to their advantage, because their opponent understands the geography of basketball.
 
If Coach Thad Matta's team, fresh off its highly successful Big Ten Tournament, had to play the Siena Saints in a truly neutral or distant location, the eighth seed in the Midwest Region would be staring at a very difficult assignment. Surely, basketball is basketball no matter where a game is played, but Ohio State's chances of slaying the ninth-seeded champion of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) improved when the Bucks drew Dayton Arena as the site of Friday's late-night fight. An 8-9 game is always dicey, but a partisan crowd should ease the burden faced by the reigning NIT champions, who will happily not have to worry about defending that particular crown.
 
Siena is a very tough matchup for the basketball Buckeyes, who are young on the perimeter and rely on do-everything superstar Evan Turner to break down opposing defenses. The Saints rocked fourth-seeded Vanderbilt in last year's NCAA Tournament, and Siena coach Fran McCaffery has said that this year's club is even better, a contention proven by a four-line jump in seeding from No. 13 to this year's No. 9 slot.

Why is Siena a difficult opponent for Ohio State? Very simply, the Saints are quicker at most positions, and are well positioned to exploit OSU's young backcourt performers, P.J. Hill and Jeremie Simmons. Turner is so accomplished as a ballhandler that he can negate Siena's pressure, but if the best Buckeye in the floor has to be the primary ballhandler for the Big Ten Tournament runner-up, he'll have little energy left for scoring or defending. All in all, someone other than Turner will have to do a lot of ballhandling, and that means that the Bucks will be vulnerable to the active hands of Siena's many capable guards.
 
Kenny Hasbrouck, Ronald Moore and Edwin Ubiles are all bent on crime. The three perimeter players are first-rate pickpockets who regularly snag steals at every opportunity. The trio combined for 8 steals in the MAAC Tournament final against Niagara, and their ability to create turnovers fuels Siena's high-scoring, up-tempo attack. If Ohio State can't dictate tempo and control the ball, the Saints will get easy buckets off wasted possessions, and any hopes of victory (and a shot against mighty Louisville) will go down the drain.
 
This is where the Dayton site comes into play.

It's easier to slow down a game's tempo than to accelerate it, especially before a sympathetic crowd. Road teams are more likely to get rattled, while home teams can more effectively manipulate tempo in the direction they want. Put this tussle in upstate New York (where the Saints are based) or somewhere in the West or the deep South, and the Buckeyes would probably have faced a crowd intent on seeing the "little guy" win. But since this game is in Dayton, the Bucks will find themselves in an unexpected comfort zone.
 
As long as OSU can indeed slow this game down and prevent Siena from getting easy baskets off turnovers, Matta's men can use Turner's size, along with the length of guys like Jon Diebler (on the perimeter) and B.J. Mullens (in the paint), to subdue the Saints in typical Big Ten fashion.
 
On a surface level, basketball is all about shooting, but when games are dissected in greater detail, tempo is the topic that usually tips the scales. Siena might still be able to live in the fast lane, but with the home cooking of Dayton so readily accessible to them, the Buckeyes will try to create a snail's pace... and slowly walk away with a very big victory.

> Find more Big Ten football news online at Big Ten Fans!