Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Ohio State Basketball Shocks No. 2 Purdue, 73-69

Transcript

Ohio State Basketball Shocks No. 2 Purdue, 73-69 · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

0:00
Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Monday, February nineteenth, I'm your host,
0:03
tom or the Akron game in one hundred and ninety four days, the game
0:06
against Michigan in two hundred and eighty five days. Hopefully you get to enjoy
0:10
a little bit of a long holiday weekend on this President's Day. Ohio State
0:14
athletics fans overall probably hoping the weekend really never comes to an end. Let's
0:19
just run through just a few of the highlights. I think I saw something
0:23
from Ohio State President Ted Carter that all fifteen Ohio State teams that were in
0:27
action on Saturday one. That's pretty remarkable. Here's a few of the highlights.
0:32
Women's hockey swept at weekend series to win the WCCHA regular season title.
0:36
Men's hockey, who has not had a great season, swept Number four Wisconsin
0:40
won both games like an actual sweep. Number four Wisconsin men's tennis events the
0:46
indoor National Championships with a four to nothing sweep over Virginia over the in the
0:50
semi finals. They will play number two TCU in the finals. And oh
0:54
yes, remember the Ohio State basketball team that everyone myself included had completely written
1:00
off, like five days ago, and then they fired their coach and it
1:03
was like, well, this is going poorly. Ohio State seventy three number
1:07
two Purdue sixty nine final score in men's basketball in the Shottenstein Center on Sunday.
1:12
I was there for it. Kevin Noon is there for it. Kevin
1:15
Noon is here with and to me now to talk about it. Kevin the
1:19
Jake Diebler era at Ohio State. I guess it's off to a good start
1:25
so far. Yeah, I want to know. And it was a big
1:29
one. Remember, Purdue came in as a number two team in the nation.
1:33
Obviously Purdue is kind of farted around in its last four games. And
1:38
I talked to a tue Purdue writer before the game. He's like, well,
1:41
Ohio State's guard play is going to be an issue and some other things.
1:45
And I'm like, you're just being nice. You're being nice, sure
1:48
in our building, and you just want to, you know, sound like
1:51
you're just part of the crowd or whatever. But what you know, fine,
1:56
you can say. But Ohio State goes out there and and takes care
2:00
of business. And it wasn't without its drama. Ohio State had to fight
2:02
to come back in the game, kind of got right up to the cusp
2:06
put and break through. Ohio State builds a big lead, not an eighteen
2:09
point lead, because we know that that's danger. That's like twenty eight to
2:13
three in the NFL. You don't want to do that, and ends up
2:17
seeing the game get tied up late and then hits some big baskets down the
2:22
stretch and and gets away with the win. And you know, Ohio State's
2:27
going to have to address another nine hundred pound monster in the room with going
2:30
on the road to Minnesota next. But you know, these these guys came
2:35
out and play their tails off and got the win that Ohio States has been
2:39
very elusive for the Buckeyes as of late. Yeah, I mean, any
2:43
any wins have been pretty elusive for Ohio State as of late. To win
2:46
a game like this against the number two team in the country really kind of
2:51
out of nowhere. I mean, you mentioned the crowd earlier. Being part
2:53
of the crowd that was about as likely as I have heard the Shottenstein Center
2:58
in a long time. And part of I think was the fact that there
3:00
were thousands of Purdue fans there. Purdue was very well represented. There were
3:05
some very loud, very clearly audible Purdue pro Purdue chants during the course of
3:09
the game. But man, when Ohio's date got it rolling and they built
3:14
a twelve point lead in the in the second half, Jamison Battle hit hit
3:19
a couple of threes back to back, and that got it got loud,
3:23
It got lively in that building, and then there were some back and forth
3:27
between the fans and it was, you know, for as often as that
3:30
building has been, you know, a slightly livelier version of a morgue over
3:34
the last few years, that was I mean, that was quite an atmosphere
3:37
in there on Saturday or Sunday. Yeah. According to the final book,
3:40
attendants was over eighteen thousand. Maybe probably not, but there were a lot
3:49
of butts and seats. The upper tank had a good amount of people,
3:53
especially center court. The INDs maybe not as much, but I heard several
3:59
boys up chants. There were thousands of Purdue fans during the introductions. The
4:05
cheers for Purdue were maybe not quite as loud as the cheers for Ohio State,
4:10
but they they registered, they were significant. You mentioned Jamison Battle.
4:15
He really got hot when it was necessary. Bruce Thoorton carried the water most
4:20
of the way, but Jamison Battle had three threes and sixty one seconds in
4:26
Ohio State needed all of those. And you know, it was not a
4:30
game where Roddy Gaale was able to really get into it. But Ohio State
4:34
getting whatever was forty one forty three points between the two main players. That's
4:42
that's what Ohio State needs. I've talked about it in other basketball shows,
4:45
and we don't do a ton of them because we go where the fans are
4:48
and there's not been a ton of demand over what Ohio State has been this
4:53
year. But you need to have that second score and maybe the third score
4:57
was not somebody got into double figures. But when you have a guys playing
5:00
like Battle and Thornton, who are the players we talked to after the game,
5:03
that means a lot. In Ohio State did a lot of the things
5:08
that played into maybe some of the cracks in the Purdue armor. Yeah,
5:13
you go through the box score and there's a bunch of boy I can't believe
5:16
you know, if I told you that this one stat, you would think
5:19
this team won by twenty points. Or if I told you that one stat,
5:23
you'd think, oh, the other team won by twenty points, and
5:26
it ended up being an incredibly close game with just a bizarre series of stats.
5:31
Perdue twenty for twenty at the line, twenty for twenty at the free
5:35
throw stripe, Zachi Y twenty two points, thirteen boards. It felt like
5:42
he didn't have a great game. He had six turnovers, and you look
5:45
at the final stats and it's twenty two points and thirteen boards, and it's
5:47
like, oh, well, I guess he had I guess he played just
5:49
fine. Twenty two points for Bruce Thorton, nineteen for Jamison Battle. You
5:54
know, if I told you Roddy Gale scores four points, You're immediately are
5:57
thinking there's no way Ohio State wins that game. If I tell you Ohio
6:00
State led twenty six to four in bench points, Okay, now you're probably
6:05
thinking Ohio State probably won by a bunch. Ohio State twenty two points off
6:10
of turnovers. Perdue just five. Just a weird, weird game, Ohio
6:14
State. Both teams shot thirty three percent from three point land Ohio State just
6:17
seven for twenty one from three. That's not a very good game. Purdue
6:23
was Okay, Purdue had an advantage in the paint thirty two to twenty four.
6:27
But you know, when you have a Zach Edy out there, and
6:29
Ohio State was just kind of like rotating guys through. I think they had
6:31
about four different guys on him at various times. It just felt like they
6:35
were just kind of throwing stuff up against the wall and it's like, Okay,
6:39
it's zed Key for a while, and then it's Felix Huckpara and then
6:42
he fouls out. And you know, I saw Evan Mahaffey was kind of
6:45
on him at one point, and they've been brought in Austin Parks at one
6:47
point, and it was just kind of throwing stuff up against the wall to
6:50
see what worked, and it just it just kind of worked. Yeah.
6:56
Credit to zed Key. Zed Key had maybe his best to fait of game
7:00
ever as a Buckeye, very active hands, was able to swap the ball
7:04
out of Zach Edy's hands multiple times. Early in the game. They were
7:11
getting these they were forcing these turnovers, but they weren't able to get them
7:15
and Purdue was able to maintain possession. But it just kind of continued on
7:19
and it really I think it kind of got into Edie's hands. Edie only
7:23
had a couple of TIMPs in the first half. In Purdue, it's like,
7:26
oh, gee, we have Zach Eidy, we should probably throw it
7:29
down to him more. And they had much more success in the second half.
7:33
But Ohio State had already planted the seed of being able to anytime that
7:39
Edie brought the ball below his waist, it was not ever going back up.
7:43
Ohio State was able to knock it away and just really rattle him a
7:48
lot. Ohio State's turnovers that it was able to force, I mean,
7:53
Ohio State, what was it were like fourteen to six and the turnovers maybe
7:57
even worse than that. That was something Mapping to talk about after the game,
8:01
and he was like, that was a huge difference right there. Ohio
8:03
State just played at a high level there, and and and Produe's record when
8:09
it is losing the turnover battle is very mortal. And you know, Purdue
8:13
when it wins of turnover battle is among the best teams in the nation.
8:18
So you look at all those types of things, Ohio State was really able
8:24
to weather multiple storms. As I mentioned earlier in the show, Purdue marches
8:30
all the way back, ties the game late and then the Buckeyes are able
8:33
to pull away, and that's not something that we've seen earlier. And of
8:37
course they're going to be the people who look to find a person to blame.
8:43
I need to find somebody to blame, because obviously it's somebody's fault,
8:46
and they're all gonna blame Chris Holtman. This is the team that was there
8:50
all along. I just think all the pieces really worked well today. And
8:56
you know, Purdue is a bad matchup for the Buckeyes. Purdue has been
9:00
a bad matchup for years just because of Matt Painter's success of recruiting bigs.
9:05
I mean, they have Zach Edie, they have a redhead that's a red
9:07
shirt freshman that's like seven to two. Oh by the way, they're bringing
9:11
in a seven foot four player to start the whole cycle over again. Ohio
9:15
State has always been a smaller team. You mentioned Felix Akpara fouls out,
9:18
Zad Key played with four fouls. They had a point where they had neither
9:22
of them on the court because Akpara was out and they were trying to save
9:26
Key, and they still managed to find a way. This is going to
9:31
be the game that a lot of people are going to circle and say,
9:35
the pieces are there. Whoever the next coach is going to be has pieces
9:39
as long as he can hold on to these guys. Well, before we
9:43
get to the next coach, let's talk about the current coach, the new
9:46
coach, the interim coach, Jake Diebler. This was his first game as
9:50
Ohio State's interim head coach, and that's quite a first impression. You never
9:54
get a chance, second chance to make a first impression. Jake Diebler made
9:56
quite a first impression on Sunday. So what did he have to say after
10:01
the game? I would imagine it was something of a day of mixed emotions
10:05
for him. Yeah, he went through the handshaken line and he's like,
10:09
I'm getting emotional. I'm getting emotional. Then his wife gets down there,
10:13
then his parents get down there, and he's like, yeah, I lost
10:16
a little bit. I'm not going to let you guys make me emotional down
10:18
here. So he managed to keep us at bay because the evil beat the
10:22
Evil beat media going to try and make coach cry or whatever. But you
10:28
know, he he, you know, asked a lot of the team and
10:31
they were able to get out there and perform, and there were a lot
10:33
of things that They said after the game that you know, he didn't want
10:37
to share, and that's fine. What happens in the locker room kind of
10:39
stays in the locker room. But there was a lot that led to this
10:43
moment, and he said that he had a really good conversation with Chris Holtman
10:48
kind of leading up to the game, not today or anything like that,
10:50
but leading up to the game. And again, the pieces are there.
10:56
That is probably the most confounding thing about this Ohio State team is you look
11:01
at the pieces that they have. You look at Bruce Thornton, you look
11:05
at jameson Battle, you look at Roddy Gale, But for whatever reason,
11:09
they've not been able to kind of get over that, to get over that
11:13
hump. And today it just all clicked. Ohio State was able to counter
11:18
punch every time that Purdue went on the offense. I brought up my shot
11:22
sheet as we were talking. With a minute thirty eight, they tied it
11:24
up a sixty five all, and then Ohio State goes on and leads the
11:31
game whatever it is, eight to four to win it out, Battle making
11:35
a couple making a big bank shot and then hitting a couple shots at the
11:39
line Thornton makes it to the line and hits a couple of shots and the
11:43
battle finishes it off. And for everything about Purdue going twenty for twenty at
11:46
the line, Ohio State was not one hundred percent. Ohio State did not
11:48
go to the line nearly as much as Purdue. But those are the shots
11:52
that we've seen Ohio State miss in previous games. And you can't blow an
11:58
eighteen point lead if you lead by eighteen. Ohio State never led by eighteen,
12:03
so we're not talking about that exactly. Life hacks. Never build too
12:07
big of a lead. Not exactly conventional wisdom with a basketball team, but
12:13
it's worked out for Jake Diebler and Deebler, according to ESPN Stats Information,
12:18
the second head coach since nineteen ninety six ninety seven to beat an AP Top
12:22
ten team in their Division One coaching debut. I thought it was very interesting.
12:26
Matt Painter, the Purdue coach, after the game, was asked about,
12:31
you know, what did they do differently? How was this this different
12:33
from a Chris Holtman team. And I thought his answer was really interesting.
12:39
Yeah, he said, if Chris Holtman was a coach, Ohio State would
12:41
have won this game seventy three to sixty nine, that they didn't go out
12:46
there and do anything different. They you know, didn't you know, they
12:50
didn't morph into something that they weren't that they just went out and played their
12:54
game. And you know, I think he was very complimentary of Chris Holtman.
12:58
We certainly heard some things from Tom Izzo, Michigan State head coach,
13:03
about the circumstances of Ohio State moving on. And while while Matt Painter didn't
13:09
come out and wasn't asked the question to lead into it directly that way,
13:13
you know, he wasn't going to sit there and say that Ohio State suddenly
13:18
decided that it was going to run a one to three one zone or something
13:22
like that and just completely change up how it it went about doing business or
13:26
anything like that. This was an Ohio State team that was dangerous to begin
13:31
with, and you know that sometimes after a move like that, you're going
13:35
to a team over the next couple five days is going to maybe have a
13:39
little bit more juice or a little bit more energy. But you know,
13:41
he went through all the stats the way you did, and you know,
13:43
Purdue had some moments of where it had you know, favorable stat matchups,
13:48
and Ohio State certainly had its favorable matchups, but you know, he wasn't
13:52
going to sit there and say that Jake Diebler necessarily, you know, solved
13:56
in enigma. And that's not taking anything away from Big Debler. That's just
14:01
saying this is the Ohio State team that they saw on tape. And I
14:05
saw some people online after the game saying, don't don't just give him the
14:09
job now because he won one game. And I don't think anyone is necessarily,
14:13
you know, racing out to give Jake Diebler the job, the permanent
14:18
job, based on just one game. I think you know you obviously,
14:20
Let's see what happens when they go on the road to Minnesota. If they
14:24
win on the road to Minnesota. Okay, they haven't done that since January
14:26
first, twenty twenty three, when it went on the road against Big Ten
14:28
Commons team. Let's see what happens there. Let's see what happens to the
14:31
rest of the regular season. They've got five regular season games left. They're
14:35
all winnable to win. At Michigan State. It's going to be probably dicey,
14:39
but they're all winnable games. Let's see where it goes. I mean,
14:45
what in your mind does Jake Diebler need to do moving forward to be
14:52
at least a serious candidate? I think, you know, I think ross
14:56
Byork's probably likely path is going to start with try to find a big name
15:01
national coach. What would Jake d you know, if he goes out and
15:05
runs a table and they win the national championship, sure it's his job,
15:07
but I mean there's something, there's probably something short of that that would get
15:11
him there or at least get him to be a serious candidate. So what
15:15
does that look like to you? What would he have to do moving forward
15:18
to be a serious part of that conversation? He has to win four or
15:22
five. He has to get Ohio State into the semis of the Big Ten
15:26
Tournament. If that's good enough to net him net Ohio State Berth into the
15:33
NCTWOA tournament. Probably even still win a game at that point, if not,
15:39
maybe win the whole damn Ni. I don't know, but you know
15:43
there're gonna be a lot of wins that need to happen at this point.
15:46
You sit there and you write this quest of emotion from this Purdue game,
15:52
Let's see what happens at Minnesota, Let's see what happens at some of these
15:54
other games. It's really easy to sit there and say, well, you
15:58
won this game against number two at home, so therefore things are fixed and
16:03
you have the secret sauce and we're going to move forward with there. I
16:06
think it's really going to take at least four wins in the regular season,
16:11
probably a couple of wins in the Big Ten tournament, and if you just
16:15
really want to sit there and make stuff complicated, win one in the postseason.
16:18
And if you're in an IT, you're gonna have to win at least
16:21
two to three times that because the n IT is the n IT and it
16:26
just is what it is. But yeah, I don't think anybody should be
16:30
thinking that Jake Diebler is measuring for the drapes right now. It's one game.
16:34
That's all well and good, but you're gonna have to win a lot
16:37
more, Yell, and he will have an opportunity to win a lot more
16:41
later on this week when they do go on the road to Minnesota. Then
16:45
they're Minnesota on Thursday at East Lansing for Michigan State next Sunday, and then
16:51
home for Nebraska this following Thursday, home for Michigan on the following Sunday,
16:56
the March the third, and then fight the regular season finale at Rutger on
17:00
Sunday, March tenth, and then after that we'll see where it goes from
17:03
there. But the Jake Leaf Diebler off to a pretty darn good start.
17:07
Seventy three sixty nine for the Buckeyes over number two Perdue on Sunday. Hey,
17:11
we're talking about basketball in this show. That's pretty notable in and of
17:15
itself. So very good, very good start to the Jake Diebler era.
17:18
Very impressive win for the Buckeyes. Nice job by the crowd that turned out.
17:22
That was getting a very lively, energetic crowd. That was a that
17:25
was a shot in Stein Center that we have not seen all that often over
17:27
the last few years, and that was kind of it was pretty fun to
17:30
be in there and have a crowd going back and forth like that. So
17:33
hopefully, hopefully we get a few more of those in the coming weeks and
17:38
coming years. So well, we will be talking basketball perhaps a little more
17:42
in the coming days and coming weeks if the Buckeyes keep playing like that,
17:45
and we'll certainly be talking football as well as we head into the spring of
17:49
football season. Buck guys aren't ready to start that on the first Tuesday in
17:55
March, so we are just over two weeks away. Goodness, pretty excited.
18:00
So we'll be there for all of that, and we're have hopefully some
18:03
coach interviews this week. That's the plan, so we get talking a good
18:06
bit of football this week. We're going to have Mark on to talk a
18:08
little recruiting tomorrow, gonna have Ross on to talk a little bit of scheme
18:12
and take a look at Michigan's new defensive coordinator Wink Martindale on Wednesday. Show
18:17
lots of interging stuff coming for you this week on Buckeyes tomorrow morning, and
18:21
lots of interesting stuff coming for you as well at buckeyehuddle dot com. We
18:23
hope to see you there. That will do it for today. Thank you
18:26
guys all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.