That's the Game: Ohio State

Hoosiers win 81-68

The scene was almost the same as the one last year: Victor throwing down a monster dunk while the Buckeyes can do nothing but watch.  The junior put together a monster of a stat line - a career-high 26 points on 8-10 shooting and 9-10 free throw, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals.  The Buckeyes couldn't figure out what to do with him and he made a solid case for both Defensive Player of the Year and Player of the Year.

Now, usually seeing that kind of stat line you'd think that it was the biggest thing of note.  Not today.  In addition to Victor, Cody scored 24 points and Christian put up 20.  Cody hit 8-11 both from the field and free throw line, while pulling down 8 rebounds and 1 block.  Christian hit 4 of his 5 three-point attempts and all 4 of his free throws while notching 6 rebounds, an assist and a steal.  Add to that 4 assists from Jordy and 3 assists from Yogi, and the Buckeyes didn't stand a chance.

Ohio State did not just roll over though.  Led by Deshaun Thomas, who played the entire 40 minutes, the Buckeyes kept the game reasonably close until well into the final minute.  Thomas tied Victor to lead all scorers with 26 points, however he was much less efficient, hitting only 8 of 20 shots for 40%.  He also pulled down 7 rebounds and registered 1 block.  Next up was Aaron Craft, who's final trip to the bench after his 5th foul with about 40 seconds remaining sealed the game for the Hoosiers, who put up 16 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and one steal.  Off the bench, LaQuinton Ross chipped in 11 points, and the next closest player in scoring was Lenzelle Smith, Jr. with 6 points.  The big stat for the Hoosiers in this regard is that the three big men used by the Buckeyes (Amir Williams, Evan Ravenel, and Trey McDonald) were a combined 2-4 from the field and scored 5 points while combining for 10 fouls.  Out of the three, Ravenel was the only Buckeye big man to even attempt a field goal.

This game did have a couple of uncharacteristic performances, both by individuals and at the team level.  For the Hoosiers, Yogi was held to a single point, going 1-2 from the charity stripe after putting up several double-digit performances during Big Ten play.  Most of this came down to two factors - some early foul trouble and the fact that he was going against one of the best on-ball defenders in the country in Craft.  Even with that, he only turned the ball over one time.  Along that line, the Hoosiers only turned the ball over 8 times as a team.  This is only the third time in the conference season that the Hoosiers have had single-digit turnovers and the first time against a ranked team.  This is especially impressive because the Buckeyes came in as the top-ranked defense in the Big Ten.  Another more negative anomaly for IU was Jordy's 3-point percentage, a dismal 14%.  This is, however, an anomaly, and as such I don't expect it to rear its head often.  One final odd quirk came from Ohio State's 3-point percentage.  The Buckeyes shot 23% from deep, a solid 15% lower than their season average.  This is a welcome rare sight for the Hoosiers, where their opponent shot a lower perimeter percentage than average.

So the result of this game was somewhat unexpected, as the Hoosiers were only favored by a single point with a 52% chance of leaving Columbus with a victory (it's sort of hard to say that anything is unexpected after watching Notre Dame score 12 points in the final minute against Louisville to send it to overtime, and then another, and another, and another, and another).  Instead, the Hoosiers proved that they learned from the Illinois loss and were able to finish it down the stretch.  IU was able to hold onto the ball, and while Thomas did score a lot, he was inefficient and just did not seem comfortable playing against the combo of Victor and Christian.  Cody was much more demanding than usual and it paid off, leading to lots of points and rebounds and causing foul chaos for the Ohio State big men.  If the Hoosiers (and not just Victor, Cody, and Christian) can continue to play at this level, there are very few teams which can beat them, even on the road.

Hoosier Highlights:

Throughout the remainder of the season, I will update the information on players who have reached or are approaching big milestones.

Christian - with 20 points today, Christian jumped up to 1,603 on his career, which is good for 11th place all-time at Indiana and passed Scott May.  In order to move into the top ten and tie Brian Evans, he will need to score another 98 points.

Jordy - Jordy now has 1,230 points in his career, good for 31st all-time.  He is catching up with the Van Arsdale twins, with Dick at number 30 with 1,240 points and Tom at number 29 with 1,252.

Cody - Cody's 24 points today puts him at 959 in his not-quite-two-year career, 41 points from 1,000.  He is currently 48th on the all-time Hoosier scoring list.

Victor - His 26 points today put Victor at 970 career points, needing 30 to join the 1,000-point club, and he currently sits two slots above Cody at number 46 on the list.  He also has 56 steals on the season, which puts him on his own in 6th place all-time.  He needs one steal to join Tom Coverdale at number 5, and 3 more steals to join Luke Recker at the number 4 slot.  Victor also has 139 career steals, which gives him 6th place on his own.  He needs 3 steals to tie Mike Woodson in the 5th slot and 9 to join Alan Henderson in the 4th spot.

Yogi - Yogi is up to 106 assists, which keeps him in 3rd place on the freshman season assists list.  He needs to get 23 more assists to tie A.J. Guyton for second.  If he can get 38 more assists this season, he would tie Damon Bailey for 15th on the all-time season assists list.

Image from the Indy Star