Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, seen here on a recruiting trip
earlier in his career, visited with Terrelle Pryor on Wednesday.

by Matt Barker
January 31, 2008

National Signing Day, which falls on Feb. 6, is less than 134 hours away and it appears that the top-rated high school prospect, quarterback Terrelle Pryor from Jeannette, Penn., just might prolong the agony of many college football fans even further.

Both Pittsburgh newspapers, the Post-Gazette and the Tribune-Review are reporting this morning that Pryor might not make his announcement as planned, next Wednesday.

Supposedly, Pryor was going to announce his decision live on both ESPN and CSTV at 12:05 p.m. But now it seems that might not happen.

According to the published reports, Pryor said, “I’d say it’s about 50-50 that I’ll push things back.”

One of the reason he might push his decision back is that he still wants to visit Oregon, even though he had earlier canceled a planned trip to the Eugene campus this week.

Another problem is that Pryor is also a highly-touted basketball player, and his high school team plays two games over the weekend, Friday and Saturday nights, limiting his ability to travel.

On Wednesday, Penn State head coach Joe Paterno was granted permission to leave the Elmcroft of State College nursing home with two chaperones, his son, Jay, who is the quarterbacks coach for the Nittany Lions, and defensive coordinator Tom Bradley, all visited with Pryor in Jeannette before stopping at a Wal-Mart store in Happy Valley to get denture cream.

“It went OK,” Pryor said of the meeting. “I just don’t know about the area up there. I don’t know if I’d like being in that kind of area.”

Well, considering Pryor is a high-profile recruit who loves having the bright lights beaming down on him, it’s hard to imagine him being happy in such a small town as State College.

Is Pryor really just having serious doubts, or is this just grand-standing? Is he a prima donna who’s ego is getting inflated on a daily basis, while enjoying the media circus, or is he in a dilemma of selecting the right program?

I think it’s a little of both.

It was also reported that Ohio State head coach Lord James Patrick Tressel and Michigan head job Dick Rodriquez will be on hand for Pryor’s basketball game, Saturday night.

Tags: Big Ten Football, Buckeye Football by Matt Barker
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Last night, as part of a promotion to raise money for charity, the goal for the Penn State Athletic Department was to attract 10,000 students to the Nittany Lions home game against Ohio State. Unfortunately, that goal fell about 4,000 short, with many empty seats in the Bryce Jordan Center.

The Big Ten Network even stepped in to buy 1,000 of those tickets. The announced attendance was 10,956, with about 6,000 of those students from a campus that has an enrollment of over 40,000. BJC’s capacity is nearly 16,000 fans.

For most games, black curtains cover up the sections in the upper bowl of the Jordan Center. A quick check with Ticketmaster reveals that there are plenty of good seats are still available for Penn State’s next home game against Michigan State, this Saturday.

The Nittany Lions feature a starting five that would have some intramural teams salivating. A 6-foot-9 center, a 6-foot-5 power forward, and a bunch of guards who shoot mostly threes.

It also doesn’t help that their best player, Geary Claxton, is out for the season after having surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee after injuring it against Wisconsin back on Jan. 15.

These are the sad state of affairs for the Nittany Lion basketball team in not-so-Happy Valley.

Amazingly, Penn State led by as much as seven points with 11:57 to go in the first half after a three-pointer by Talor Battle put the Lions ahead 19-12.

Ohio State fought back and took a 28-24 lead with five minutes to play in the opening stanza when Jon Diebler drained a three-ball.

After a Matt Terwilliger dunk with five seconds left until intermission, both teams headed into the locker room with the game deadlocked at 34-all.

Penn State shot 43 percent (13-for-30) in the half while Ohio State hit 48 percent (13-for-27) from the field. Impressive numbers, to say the least, but only one team was able to keep scorching the nets in the second period, while the other went ice cold.

Of the 34 points scored by Penn State in the first half, 15 of those came on the fast break, something they were not able to duplicate in the second half due to Ohio State’s defensive pressure.

A rainbow jumper over the outstretched arm of Kosta Koufos from Columbus native and Brookhaven grad Jamelle Cornley put the Lions ahead 44-40 with 14:20 to play in the second half before Buckeyes started playing defense.

As OSU cranked up the “D,” Penn State missed their next 11 shots and committed four turnovers during a 10-minute scoring drought that allowed the Buckeyes to take control.

Ohio State posted a 16-0 run by getting eight points and a pair of threes from the best point guard in the Big Ten, Jamar Butler, to take a 56-44 lead with 5:29 to play.

As they say in Germany, “Auf Wiedersehen!”

Even though the Buckeyes won by a margin of 12, the final five minutes were still an adventure.

Penn State’s Danny Morrissey connected from downtown to pull the Lions within 61-53 with 1:34 left.

Then after taking the inbounds pass, Butler raced down the sidelines. Even though it looked like he was forced out, instead of a foul being called, the referee whistled Butler for stepping out-of-bounds.

The Nittany Lions misfired on two attempts from three-point range before Butler rebounded the second miss and was fouled.

His two made free throws put the Buckeyes up 63-53 with 52 seconds to play.

After that, it seemed like Ohio State was never going to get the ball back. Two turnovers and two fouls on the Buckeyes kept Penn State in possession on their end of the floor for what seemed like an eternity.

Cornley made the second of his two free throw attempts before a long outlet pass to Terwilliger then on to a wide-open Evan Turner for the flush finally sealed the win.

Ohio State’s shooting was too much for the Lions as the Buckeyes hit 49 percent from the field (25-for-51) and 38 percent (8-for-21) from beyond the arc.

Penn State hit just 35 percent (21-for-60) of their shots from the field, and checked 32 of those from behind the semi-circle, making a mere nine for a grand total of 28.1 percent.

Playing much better defense in the second half, the Buckeyes held the Lions to just 4-of-19 from the arc, including just five of its last 22 shots from the field.

Butler led Ohio State with 20 points and six assists. Koufos and Terwilliger both chipped in 10 points.

It wasn’t the prettiest of wins, but it was a win on the road nonetheless, something that has proved to be difficult for the young Buckeyes so far this season.

Tags: Buckeye Basketball by Matt Barker
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Tonight, Thad Matta’s basketball Buckeyes travel to University Park to take on the Penn State Nittany Lions. Tip-off at the Bryce Jordan Center is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET, and it will be televised on ESPN with Brent Musburger, Steve Lavin, and Erin Andrews.

Some schools are known for their basketball programs, like Duke, though they fare miserably on the football field. Then there are schools like Penn State, who has had success on the gridiron, but the Nittany Lions haven’t been able to duplicate that on the hardwood.

It was looking like Penn State (10-9, 2-5 Big Ten) had an outside shot of making it to the NCAA Tournament this season, which would of been their first trip since 2001, but those hopes and dreams crashed and burned when senior forward Geary Claxton went down with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee against Wisconsin back on Jan. 15.

Claxton was averaging 17.5 points and 8.4 rebounds per game, both tops on the Nittany Lion roster, before his season-ending injury.

At one point, Penn State had a record of 10-4, 2-0 in the Big Ten, but have lost five straight games including a 64-49 setback at Iowa, last Saturday.

Now the scoring load for Penn State falls directly on the shoulders of Columbus native and Brookhaven graduate, 6-foot-5 junior forward Jamelle Cornley, who is the only other Nittany Lion who averages in double figures at 12.5 points per outing.

After Cornley, Penn State’s next four top scorers are all guards with 5-foot-11 freshman Talor Battle (8.8 ppg), 6-foot-3 junior Danny Morrissey (7.2 pgg), 6-foot-1 junior Stanley Pringle (5.7 pgg), and 6-foot-2 senior Mike Walker (5.6 ppg).

Only one post player other than Cornley averages more than 20 minutes per game, and that distinction belongs to 6-foot-6 freshman David Jackson (5.3 pgg, 3.3 rpg).

Over the last four games, Cornley and Battle have averaged 14.0 and 11.0 points per contest, respectively, since Claxton went down with a knee injury. They are the only Lions averaging double-digits in Big Ten games with Cornley posting 15.3 ppg and Battle 12.3 ppg.

Keys to the Game:

With Penn State having no one taller than 6-foot-6 in their starting five, the Nittany Lions will use a lot of full-court pressure to force turnovers. With that, the Buckeyes must be able to handle that pressure a little better than they did against Minnesota.

One must is that the Buckeyes need to limit the mistakes. There were several bad outlet passes, including one by Jamar Butler when he was behind the basket, and the ball struck the rim and glanced off into the hands of a Minnesota player. That’s one of the first rules you learn in organized basketball.

One thing I have noticed when Ohio State tries to break a full-court press is that they tend to take off by dribbling down the sidelines. The press is best broken by passing to the middle first, then out towards the sidelines.

Ohio State’s zone defense should give Penn State fits, but they have to do a better job of getting rebounds and not allowing the Lions to have any second-chance points. When you are guarding an area as oppose to a man, you have to seek out someone to block out then attack the glass. The Buckeyes seem react after the shot more than attack.

Without much of a post presence on offense for Penn State, Ohio State should be able to extend their 2-3 match-up zone defense to make sure no one gets off shooting threes.

Offensively with the height advantage, the Buckeyes should feed the post more often. Kosta Koufos needs to have strong game inside tonight, and he should be able to do that against a much smaller Nittany Lion squad.

Ohio State is just 2-4 on the road, and have got off to some rocky starts. It’s important to not only finish strong, but begin that way too, and take the crowd out of the game.

Tags: Buckeye Basketball by Matt Barker
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As reported by Bruce Cadwallader of The Columbus Dispatch, Robert E. Haines Jr. was sentenced to three years in prison after writing two bad checks to The Ohio State University for season football tickets in 2003 and 2004. He was also ordered to pay the grand sum of $18,205 in restitution.

What’s astounding is that Haines thought that he was just going to get probation after he pleaded guilty, last November.

“Your honor, I can’t do prison,” Haines said to Judge Michael J. Holbrook in the Franklin County Common Pleas courtroom.

According to Haines’ lawyer, Byron L. Potts of TV commercial fame, he’s broke, even though he did bring a check to cover a small part of the restitution that was order to court.

A check!? It better had been a certified or cashier’s check!

Supposedly he lives in a half-million dollar house on the Far North Side and earns more than $400,000 a year as a financial consultant and restaurant owner, and yet he’s broke. Haines also has health problems, which usually pop up when you facing jail time. Plus he’s has six more pending lawsuits, one of which has been filed by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.

Clearly, the justice system does work sometimes. Kudos to Judge Holbrook. Any relation to Karen?

Tags: University News by Matt Barker
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First off, I am going to take this opportunity to use the first few paragraphs to state my case that Ohio State’s Jamar Butler is the 2008 Big Ten Player of the Year.

Butler is currently eighth in the conference averaging 15.0 points per game, and a league-best 6.3 assists per outing. But those are just the basics. He’s far more valuable than what those statistics indicate.

Butler has been in the program for four years now, and is one of only three seniors on the roster. Though primarily a point guard during his freshman and sophomore campaigns, he moved to shooting guard when Mike Conley came to Columbus.

Returning to his role quarterbacking the Buckeye attack while helping a team full of first and second-year players adjust to the college game, and he’s clearly the best point guard in the Big Ten. Michigan State’s Drew Neitzel?

C’mon man, gimme a break.

If Butler is not this season’s Big Ten Player of the Year, then it has to be someone from Indiana. And I’m not talking about Eric Gordon. While Gordon averages a conference-best 21.7 points per game, he’s one-dimensional, a scorer. He averages more turnovers per game than rebounds or assists.

I guess you could make a case for Indiana’s D.J. White, if it’s not Butler. He’s tied for third in the Big Ten averaging 16.8 points per game, and tops the conference with an average of 10.2 caroms per contest for the Hoosiers.

Those are fairly impressive stats, but Butler still gets my vote, especially after his performance against Minnesota as he scored 27 points with nine assists to lead Ohio State to a 76-60 win at Value City Arena, Saturday night.

The Buckeyes scored 19 of the games first 22 points to begin the contest, and to quote famous assistant greenskeeper, Carl Spackler, “Au revoir, gopher!”

During that 19-3 run by Ohio State, which was capped off on a baseline jumper from Matt Terwilliger with 10:33 left to open the first half, Evan Turner, who scored 10 of his 17 points in the opening stanza, tossed in a pair of three-pointers and Butler added a trey.

Defensively, the Buckeyes held the Gophers to 1-for-15 shooting from the field and forced five turnovers.

Minnesota thawed out and chipped away at Ohio State’s lead, but the Buckeyes jogged off the court at halftime with a 35-25 cushion.

The Golden Gophers slowly climbed back into the game to begin the second half and made it a one-possession game when John Williams converted a pair of charity-stripe tosses to trim OSU’s lead to 44-41 with 13:16 to go.

The Buckeyes went up 48-42 with 10:22 remaining after a fine pass from Butler resulted in an alley-oop dunk by Terwilliger. Then things got real interesting.

With 9:58 to play, Ohio State’s Jon Diebler misses a three-pointer that was corralled by Minnesota’s Travis Busch along the baseline near the left corner when his feet gave out from under him, then he was slightly bumped by Terwilliger from behind.

Busch was called for traveling and Minnesota head coach Tubby Smith stormed out on the court as the old man ripped off his glasses before getting “T’ed” up, and Butler converted both free throws to put OSU ahead 50-42.

The play of the game followed when Terwilliger got a steal near midcourt and the loose ball was scooped up by Turner, who then flipped a behind-the-back pass to Diebler and he finished it off with a two-handed, rim-rattling dunk.The Buckeyes forced a turnover on the Gophers next possession and dunk by Turner pushed Ohio State’s lead up to an even dozen with 9:06 to play.

Shortly thereafter, Minnesota called a timeout. Butler appeared to be waiting for Terwilliger to give him a high-five and happened to be in the path of Minnesota’s Al Nolen, who gave Butler a foreman as he walked by. Butler retaliated and was whistled for a technical foul of his own.

But Minnesota could not get any closer than seven points the rest of the way.

Ohio State biggest lead of the game was with 1:07 left after Kosta Koufos drained a pair of free throws to put the Buckeyes up 75-56.

Two glaring stats that seem to happen each game for the Buckeyes. They gave up 16 offensive rebounds, which is way too much. Secondly, Ohio State committed 17 turnovers. Again, that’s way too many.

On the plus side, the Buckeyes also forced 17 turnovers, and outrebounded the Gophers, 38-34.

What was impressive is that Ohio State shot an even 50 percent (26-for-52) from the field. The Buckeyes were also 8 of 24 (33.3%) beyond the arc.

Minnesota shot just 36.5 percent (23-for-63) from the floor, and 6 of 22 (27.3%) from three-point land.

Along with Butler’s 27 and Turner’s 17 points, Koufos added 15 of his own. Turner, Koufos and Othello Hunter each had team-high eight rebounds.

Up next, Ohio State travels to University Park to take on the Penn State Nittany Lions. Tip-off at the Bryce Jordan Center is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET, and it will be televised on ESPN.

Tags: Buckeye Basketball by Matt Barker
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When Orlando “Tubby” Smith is not working behind the counter filling burritos at an on-campus Chipotle restaurant (by the way, I’ll have a steak fajita burrito), he can be found coaching the Minnesota basketball team.

Smith, who previously coached at Kentucky, was hired last March to replace interim head coach Jim Molinari after he took over eight games into the 2006-07 season when Dan Monson resigned.

Smith coached at Kentucky for 10 seasons, winning 263 games with one national championship in 1997, five SEC regular season championships, five SEC Tournament titles, and six Sweet Sixteen finishes.

But that was at Kentucky, arguably one of the premier programs in the country, and it’s not a bad resume for a man Wildcat fans dubbed, “Ten-loss Tubby,” after back-to-back double-digit seasons with losses before he resigned to become the head coach of the Golden Gophers.

Now he’s in charge of a Minnesota program that went 9-22 under Monson and Molinari, and while the Gopher faithful have high hopes for Smith, the success he enjoyed at Kentucky is unlikely to be duplicated.

The Gophers enter Saturday’s nights game against the Buckeyes at Value City Arena with an overall record of 12-5, though I think those numbers tend to be a mirage of sorts.

Ohio State currently ranks 24th in the latest RPI Index, while Minnesota is a distant 73rd, which was updated through yesterday’s games.

According to Ken Pomeroy, the Buckeyes are 3-6 against teams in the RPI Top 100, while Minnesota is 1-5. In fact, Minnesota’s lone win against a team in the top 100 of the RPI Index came against Iowa State, who currently sits at No. 100. Also, Ohio State’s strength of schedule is ranked ninth out of the 341 Division I schools, and Minnesota SOS comes in at No. 139.

In fact, Minnesota has padded its win total by playing cupcakes like Army, Central Michigan, UC-Riverside, North Dakota State, Colorado State, South Dakota State, Santa Clara, Nicholls State and Kennesaw State. Not exactly a North Carolina in that bunch.

The only ranked opponents Minnesota has taken on have all come from within the Big Ten Conference, losing twice to Michigan State, and once to Indiana. The Golden Gophers have also lost to Florida State and UNLV out of conference.

Minnesota lost a school-record 22 games last season, so having 12 wins in January is a positive. And even though Smith is walking on water right now in Minnesota, that’s pretty easy to do when that water is frozen throughout the basketball season in the Twin Cities.

Tags: Buckeye Basketball by Matt Barker
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