Buckeyes hang tough on the road

By Bob Baptist

The Columbus Dispatch

MINNEAPOLIS

Previous Ohio State teams have come into this 80-year-old facility nicknamed “The Barn” and played like it was five-on-50, swarmed and ultimately overrun, it seemed, not only by Minnesota’s players but by its fans and the ghosts of implosions past.

This isn’t one of those Ohio State teams, though, and Sunday was not one of those days.

“We talked about the pressure,” said David Lighty, the Buckeyes’ most seasoned veteran. “When we come up here, they usually feed off their crowd, and I think that gives them a little more energy. I think we dealt with it pretty well.”

The No. 1-ranked Buckeyes gained the upper hand with an early bolt of 3-point baskets and hung tough through the inevitable storms to beat the No. 18 Gophers for only the second time in their past six visits to Williams Arena, 82-69.

“I thought our guys had a pretty good mentality coming into the game, knowing the challenge that lay ahead,” Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. “We told the guys going in that this was going to be about playing hard. We had to match their energy, we had to match their intensity.”

Lighty led Ohio State (24-0, 11-0 Big Ten) with 19 points and along with Jared Sullinger, Dallas Lauderdale and Deshaun Thomas helped the Buckeyes prevail in a key inside matchup against the Gophers’ trio of big men, Trevor Mbakwe, Ralph Sampson III and Colton Iverson.

“We were pretty much manhandled in the second half,” said Minnesota coach Tubby Smith, who has had to rely on his frontcourt since point guard Al Nolen suffered a broken foot and sixth man Devoe Joseph transferred.

Sullinger had 18 points and 13 rebounds for his 11th double-double of the season and had eight of the Buckeyes’ 22 offensive rebounds, their most in a game in eight years.

Lauderdale’s powerful dunks early in the second half — in the faces of vocal Minnesota students behind the Buckeyes’ basket — short-circuited a quick start by the Gophers, who had cut their eight-point halftime deficit to five in the first two minutes.

Lauderdale scored eight of his 10 points in the first four minutes of the half as the Buckeyes expanded their lead to 11 points, and Minnesota did not get closer than 10 again.

“We knew this was going to be a crazy, crazy environment. We embraced that,” Lauderdale said. ‘We love playing in crazy environments. We fed off that. It gave us energy. It was just a fun game.”