Othello Hunter had a career best 17 points and 11 rebounds in only 13 minutes of action and Greg Oden pitched in with 16 points (8-8 FG), 4 rebounds and 3 blocks in his first collegiate start leading OSU to a 78-57 victory against Cleveland State. The Buckeyes jumped out to a 12-0 lead just 3 minutes into the game with Oden scoring 8 points in the outburst and led at the break by a score of 41-31. OSU killed the Vikings down low and finished with a 45-21 rebounding advantage. The sportsgal and I went to the game and it was nice to see a few less empty seats, as 17,158 braved the bone chilling wind. Admittedly, I spent a little too much time in the Huntington Club during the game and at Patrick J's afterward so I will leave the expert analysis to the guy who gets paid for it. Check out Bob Baptist's recap in today's Columbus Dispatch.
A few items of note: Mike Conley Jr. had another strong performance with 12 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists and Ivan Harris pulled down 10 rebounds. As usual, Ivan wasn't shy on the trigger as he launched 11 shots, making 3, in 27 minutes. My man Daequan Cook struggled, picking up two early fouls and finished with just 6 points in 16 minutes. Matt Turdwiggler also struggled with 0 rebounds in 18 minutes. If he doesn't pick up his game soon, he's going to be spending a lot of time on the pine when Matta shortens his bench once we get into conference play. As a team, OSU was awful from the line again, going 13-23 (56%), although 3 of those misses were from the left-hand of Oden. Lastly, I am having a hard time figuring out what Jamar Butler's role is on this team. He is a fine player who has distributed the ball well but he seems to be a little forgotten or lost in this year's offense. He played 30 minutes yesterday and didn't play poorly at all but he only took 4 shots. Maybe Matta will ask him to pick up more of the scoring load once we get into the Big11Ten season?
