Right: Junior guard Willie Veasley scored a career-high 13 points at Bradley, Wednesday night. (AP Photo)

The 21st-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes will host the Butler Bulldogs at Value City Arena, Saturday afternoon. Tip-off is scheduled for 12:00 p.m. ET.

The Bulldogs enter Saturday’s contest with an unblemished record of 8-0, and while they are unranked, Butler did receive votes in both major polls this week, and are third in the Rating Percentage Index (RPI) just below Gonzaga and Clemson. For comparison sake, Ohio State is 25th in the RPI.

Of Butler’s nine wins, the most notable ones are Northwestern (57-53), Evansville (75-59), and Bradley (87-75).

Second-year head coach Brad Stevens took over the reigns at Butler in 2007 for Todd Lickliter, now at Iowa, and has just one returning starter and one senior from last season’s team that finished 30-4 overall, eventually losing in second round of NCAA tournament to Tennessee.

Stevens, coincidentally, was hired in 2000 by Thad Matta when he was head coach at Butler to be the Director of Basketball Operations.

Gone from last year’s team are First-Team, All-Horizon League guards A.J. Graves and Mike Green, as well as Pete Campbell, Julian Betko and Drew Streicher.

Shelvin Mack, a 6-foot-3 freshman guard leads the Bulldogs in scoring averaging 13.1 points per game, while another freshman, 6-foot-8 swingman Gordon Haywood, is third at 11.9 points per outing and is Butler’s best marksman from beyond the arc (47.1%).

The lone returning starter, 6-foot-7 sophomore forward Matt Howard, is second in scoring (12.9 ppg) and Butler’s best glass cleaner (6.4 rpg).

On Wednesday night, visiting Butler jumped out to a 20-6 lead against Bradley and then held off a second-half comeback attempt by the Braves while posting a 12-point win.

The Bulldogs shot 59 percent from the field in the first half and led at halftime, 44-31. Bradley cut the margin to five points on two occasions in the second half, the last at 62-57 with 8:27 remaining. The Bulldogs responded with an 11-0 scoring run to post their biggest lead of the contest, 73-57.

Butler wound up shooting a season-best 54 percent (29-of-54) from the field for the game, including 48 percent (13-of-27) from beyond the three-point arc.

The Bulldogs are currently leading the Horizon League in scoring margin (+14.4), scoring defense (55.2), field goal percentage (.441), turnover margin (+4.6), assist/turnover radio (1.2) and three-point field goals per game (8.8), plus Butler is ranked sixth in the NCAA in scoring defense and fewest turnovers.

No. 21 Ohio State (5-0) vs. Butler (8-0)

Date: Saturday, December 13
Time: 12:00 p.m. ET
Place: Value City Arena – capacity 19,049
TV: The Big Ten Network with Tom Hamilton and former Buckeye Jimmy Jackson.
Radio: WBNS-AM 1460 and WBNS-FM 97.1 in Columbus and 58 more stations across Buckeyeland on the Ohio State Buckeyes Radio Network with Paul Keels and Ron Stokes.
Series History: Ohio State owns a 30-9 record against Buter dating back to 1924.
Last Game: Ohio State lost to Butler, 61-46, at Hinkle Fieldhouse last season, in a game where the Buckeyes led 30-20 at halftime.

Tags: Men's Basketball by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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Right: OSU linebacker James Laurinaitis.
(AP Photo)

Wake Forest senior Aaron Curry has won the Butkus Award honoring the nation’s top college linebacker.

Ohio State’s James Laurinaitis, who won the award last year, finished third behind USC’s Rey Maualuga and Curry.

Laurinaitis will be in Houston, Texas, on Wednesday night as the finalist for the the Lombardi Award, then he treks over to Orlando, Fla., where he’s up for the Bednarik Award as part ESPN’s college football awards show.

Little Animal will meet up with fellow senior and cornerback Malcolm Jenkins, who was named with Laurinaitis to the American Football Coaches Association All-America team last week.

Jenkins was also named a finalist for the Thorpe award, which goes to the nation’s top defensive back.

Laurinaitis then heads to Newport beach, California, for the Lott Trophy presentation on Sunday.

Tags: Football by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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Right: Boise State’s blue turf. (AP Photo)

The Ohio State Buckeyes will be making their fourth straight BCS appearance and seventh overall as they will take on the third-ranked Texas Longhorns in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, January 5, at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Kickoff is scheduled for 8:20 p.m. ET.

The 10th-ranked Buckeyes are now tied with Oklahoma and USC for the most BCS appearances and are 4-2 in those games.

The Longhorns finished in a three-way tie atop the Big 12 South and thought that their 10-point victory over Oklahoma should have earned them the nod over the Sooners. But Oklahoma was declared the division winner on a BCS standings tiebreaker, and the Sooners ripped Missouri in the Big 12 title game to earn a trip to Miami for the national title game.

The Fiesta lost Big 12 champion Oklahoma to the BCS title game, so it was a no-brainer to replace the Sooners with Texas. When it came time to name an opponent for the Longhorns, the Fiesta had to decide between tradition and rankings.

It picked tradition, selecting Ohio State over Utah, the undefeated Mountain West Conference champion ranked three slots higher. The Utes, who were guaranteed a BCS berth, will face Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

Boise State was left out of the Bowl Championship Series with an undefeated record for the second time in five years, even though the Broncos were ranked No. 9 in both polls as well the final BCS Standings, one slot higher than the Buckeyes.

The BCS only guarantees one spot to a team from the five non-automatic bid leagues—Mountain West Conference, Western Athletic Conference, Mid-American Conference, Sun Belt Conference and Conference USA—that finishes in the top 12.

Utah was ahead of Boise State because the Utes’ conference (MWC) is better than the Broncos’ (WAC). So Utah is the BCS buster. Boise State could have gotten the at-large bid that went to Ohio State, but it’s hard to argue that the Broncos are better than the Buckeyes. Ohio State’s opponents had a record of 82-62. Boise State’s opponents were 64-81.

Tags: Football by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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Right: Evan Turner wraps a pass around Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody. (Getty Images)

After playing four games against three mid-major programs and a high school team from Alabama, the Ohio State Buckeyes ventured out on the road for the first time this season to balmy and no-so-balmy locations, taking on ranked opponents from arguably the two top conferences in the country.

The first stop on Thad Matta’s fact-finding mission was the BankUnited Center in Coral Gables, Florida, where Ohio State defeated 22nd-ranked Miami.

After south Florida, the Buckeyes next stop was the brand new Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to face the seventh-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Though Coach Matta would never admit this, here’s what I learned from Ohio State’s two-game road trip. The Buckeyes are serious contenders in the race for the Big Ten title, and Evan Turner is the real deal.

Turner recorded team-highs in points and rebounds scoring 28 while pulling down 10 boards as Ohio State downed Notre Dame 67-62, Saturday afternoon.

Turner is now fourth in the Big Ten in scoring, averaging 16.6 points per game and third in rebounding, pulling down 7.8 boards per contest.

The Buckeyes got off to a slow start as the Irish scored eight of the game’s first 10 points. After a short jumper by Tory Jackson with 15:48 left in the first half, Notre Dame led 8-2.

But Ohio State got back into the game, and after several ties and lead changes, the Buckeyes took to lead for good with 1:34 left until halftime on a jumper by William Buford that put OSU up 28-26.

In the second half, Ohio State never trailed and led by as many as 10 points with 6:47 left to play after David Lighty scored on a fast-break layup that made the score 58-48.

Notre Dame, though, went on a 10-3 run over the next three minutes and 57 seconds with Tory Jackson draining a three from the left wing that closed the gap to 61-59 with 2:50 remaining which made it a one-possession game.

Both teams misfired during their next turns with the orange-colored ball, but on consecutive possessions Turner drained a short jumper for Ohio State and Jackson connected on another trey for Notre Dame that cut OSU’s advantage down to a single point with 26 ticks left.

Luckily for Ohio State, both Turner and Jeremie Simmons combined to go 4-for-4 from the foul line in the closing seconds while Notre Dame could not hit their shots from beyond the arc.

Along with Turner, the only other Buckeye to notch double-digit points was freshman center Byron James Mullens, who scored 11 with seven rebounds off the bench.

Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody, who missed the last two games due to pneumonia and was listed as out indefinitely before the game, had a double-double in the first 16 minutes and finished with 25 points and 16 rebounds.

While Harangody was was able to score inside, the Irish had plenty of problems against the Buckeyes’ swarming zone around the perimeter. Notre Dame guard Kyle McAlarney, who was averaging 32.7 points in his previous three games, scored just six and went 0-for-6 from three-point range.

Tags: Men's Basketball by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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