Tuesday, January 27, 2004
The junior transfer won't even make the trip to Iowa today.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Ohio State's leading scorer, junior guard Tony Stockman, will not play today at Iowa and must decide "what he wants to do with his career," coach Jim O'Brien said Friday.
Stockman, a transfer from Clemson playing his first season with the Buckeyes, is averaging 12.8 points, hitting 85 percent of his free throws and is third in the Big Ten in steals with just over two per game.
Ohio State (9-8, 1-3) has floundered most of the year because of a lack of cohesion on the floor and wild inconsistency from almost every player on the roster.
"Tony Stockman is not going to be making the trip with us," O'Brien said. "The simple reason is that at this stage, I'm not 100 percent convinced that he really wants to be here and be part of our group, so I'm just going to give him a couple of days off to kind of evaluate where he is and what he wants to do with his career and how he wants to approach the future."
Trouble all season
O'Brien, in his seventh year at Ohio State, has been troubled all season by Stockman's poor shot selection and shaky defense.
Stockman is welcome to return to the team for Monday's practice, O'Brien said.
A former Ohio Mr. Basketball from Medina, Stockman hit 3 of 12 shots from the field, including just 1 of 9 3-pointers, in Tuesday night's 69-61 home loss to Indiana. In 38 minutes, Stockman also tied a season high with five rebounds and had three assists, three steals and two turnovers.
Stockman did not practice with the team Friday and was not made available to reporters afterward.
O'Brien said that the problems with Stockman came to a head during Thursday's practice.
"That's all the detail I really care to go into," said O'Brien, who terms the problems "bigger than just basketball."
Buckeyes struggling
Ohio State is off to its worst start since O'Brien's first season when the Buckeyes, playing a patchwork lineup, finished 8-22.
This year's team opened with consecutive losses and has had difficulty maintaining its equilibrium ever since.
"We're trying everything," O'Brien said. "Obviously when you get to this point this is yet another attempt to try and figure this thing out. Obviously I feel at times that Tony does not get the message that he needs to get."
O'Brien said the decision was not meant to be any kind of a statement of his own authority.
"I didn't get any sleep last night. I tossed and turned, I've been thinking about this for 24 hours," he said.
"I'm not doing this just to prove a point to anybody or to have anybody feel like I'm the boss and I'm in charge and this is my team. It's so far not even being close to being about that. I'm not happy with this, but I just think it has to get done."