Buckeyes plan to go hard at Big 10 tourney

By Bob Baptist

The Columbus Dispatch

INDIANAPOLIS

For the fourth time in six years, Ohio State is the No. 1 seed at the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament.

The Buckeyes also are the No. 1-ranked team in the country and a likely No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament next week.

Seemingly, the conference tournament is worth nothing tangible to them besides “another trophy to put in Coach [Thad] Matta’s office,” freshman Jared Sullinger said.

Fans probably won’t be able to tell by the way they play, though.

In the past five seasons, usually with nothing more to play for than another trophy for Matta’s office, the Buckeyes have reached the championship game four times and won it twice.

Last year, as the top seed and with a high NCAA seed already assured, they went to double overtime to defeat Illinois in their second game in 26 hours.

The next day, in the title game against a Minnesota team playing its fourth game in four days, both teams looked as if they were “playing in quicksand,” Matta said.

Until David Lighty got loose.

Lighty scored four points in 15 seconds by grabbing a pair of rebounds and rushing upcourt for layups. He scored another driving basket 20 seconds after that. He also had a three-point basket in a 23-5 run midway through the second half that blew open a two-point game and propelled Ohio State to a 90-61 victory in Conseco Fieldhouse.

After having played every minute for Ohio State to that point in the tournament, where did Lighty find the energy?

“I’m not too sure,” he said this week. “I was just out there making plays and trying to hustle and help my team win. I don’t think it was anything special.”

Lighty was merely drawing on the strength and stamina he has accrued since entering the program in 2006 and enduring the offseason regimen of strength and conditioning coordinator Dave Richardson.

Asked this week if there is the concern in-house that there is outside the program about the upperclassmen playing the minutes they do, Richardson said, “Absolutely not.”

“Our guys, especially the older guys, know to have proper nutrition, to get enough sleep, to hydrate,” he said. “They’ve learned that over the years.

“Jon Diebler can play 40 minutes three days in a row. He has. So has Lighty. They can do it.”

Richardson builds the players’ base of strength with weight lifting in the spring. He builds their stamina during the summer with mile runs, circuit workouts and drills in sand.

“It gets your mind conditioned to the rigors of the season and the way Thad plays,” Richardson said. “What keeps us in great shape throughout the season is how hard we play.”