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 //