All of the pregame buzz Monday evening surrounded the sudden change Ohio State head coach Thad Matta made to his starting lineup for the Buckeyes’ game against Penn State. Matta inserted both A.J. Harris and Daniel Giddens as starters in place of JaQuan Lyle and Trevor Thompson hoping to get his team out of the funk it had been in over recent weeks.
But, as it turned out, a guy who has been a mainstay all season in the starting lineup for Ohio State made the difference.
Keita Bates-Diop scored 22 points, grabbed eight rebounds and had four blocks as the Buckeyes cruised to a 66-46 victory. The win bumped Ohio State to 13-8 on the year and the Buckeyes improved to 5-3 in the Big Ten.
“Being more aggressive, I felt the need to do that tonight,” Bates-Diop said. “I hadn’t been in a couple of games and it was due time.”
That has been the biggest issue in this sophomore season for Bates-Diop. The 6-foot-7 wing has a versatile game and possesses the talent and ability to take over, but also has a tendency to disappear at certain times.
In the five games leading up to Monday night’s win over the Nittany Lions, Bates-Diop had been held to six points or fewer in three of them, while going scoreless twice. In the other two, he had recorded 14 and 15 points. The inconsistencies weren’t adding up and Matta felt the need to try and light a spark.
So, after Bates-Diop went scoreless on just two shot attempts last Thursday night in Ohio State’s 75-64 loss at Purdue, Matta had a sitdown with the Buckeyes’ talented sophomore.
“We talked Saturday morning and I told [Bates-Diop] that I needed him to be more aggressive,” Matta said. “Twenty-two points or whatever, that’s a bonus, but I just wanted to say Keita back playing the way Keita can play and I thought he was very effective tonight.”
“When he said that, I mean I don’t want to let him down and come out and do the same thing again,” Bates-Diop added. “The talk definitely helped.”
Bates-Diop led the way for Ohio State in a game it simply couldn’t afford to lose. Jae’Sean Tate was steady with 15 points and four rebounds and Marc Loving added 11 points.
Harris scored four points and had four assists in 20 minutes in his first-career start, while Giddens played 28 minutes and had five points and nine rebounds. Off the bench, Lyle took just two shoots — connecting on a pair of 3-pointers — in 18 minutes.
Matta said the decision to make the change was based on performance in recent practices.
“Both [A.J.] and Daniel had really, really practiced well leading in and we had a couple days there to really, really get after it, really, really compete,” Matta said. ”I don’t want to say it was easy, but it was something that those guys probably earned the right to start.”
It doesn’t really matter who starts for Ohio State if Bates-Diop isn’t playing well, though. The Buckeyes can’t reach their full potential without one of their most talented players playing at a high level. He answered the bell Monday night. Yes, it was against a Penn State team with just two Big Ten wins, but it was important for Ohio State that Bates-Diop to have this kind of effort.
The Buckeyes, despite how bad things have been at times, are still 5-3 in the Big Ten and have a winnable game on deck Thursday at Illinois. A win there would give Ohio State six league wins at the halfway point and that’s something that didn’t really seem realistic at the start of this season.
“This was a good win with what we’ve been through,” Matta said. “We had a few breaks in the action, but, like I said, we’re sitting eight games into the Big Ten at 5-3 and Thursday is another big game for us.”
Added Tate: “A win always feels better than a loss. Of course we are glad that the streak is over, but we know that we have got more work to do. We are about to turn the halfway point in the Big Ten season so these next few games are going to be vital.”
