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OHIO STATE NOTES
OSU freshmen taking leadership roles
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
COLUMBUS — It's fitting the Ohio State men's basketball team planned to watch Michigan State's upset of Wisconsin in the freshmen room Tuesday.
Mike Conley Jr., Greg Oden, Daequan Cook and David Lighty are taking a bigger role in the leadership of the team during players-only meetings.
Extras
"There's a lot of people's opinions on what's going on and how to attack certain teams," Conley said Tuesday. "If people have problems personally and they feel like they need to express them to the team, we all talk about it together. Coach told us ... it doesn't matter what grade you are. Whoever wants to step up needs to step up."
Lineup change
Matta further explained his decision to start Cook instead of senior Ron Lewis against Minnesota. The coach pointed to good practice being rewarded, but hinted that's not the only factor. He also hadn't yet settled on tonight's starting lineup.
"(Cook's) been effective, and it's not about scoring," Matta said. "It's about rebounding. It's about defense. It's about assist-to-turnover ratio."
Lewis averages 27.3 minutes to Cook's 21.5. Lewis averages 11.4 points and 3.6 rebounds with 23 steals and six blocks.
Cook averages 11.9 points and 5.1 rebounds with 21 steals and nine blocks.
Both average about a 0.72-to-1.0 assist-to-turnover ratio.
"If I would have sulked or got mad at it, it wouldn't have done any justice to our team," said Lewis, who scored 16 against Minnesota. "It would have made our team spread apart."
Lesson learned?
With No. 2 OSU's Sunday showdown with No. 1 Wisconsin looming, Ohio State coach Thad Matta turned every question back toward tonight's game against Penn State, which nearly upset the Buckeyes last week.
"That was a good awakening for us," said Matta, whose main issue with his team is playing consistently for 40 minutes. "To know you're up 24 points and 15 minutes later, it's a shot at the buzzer to win or lose the game."
Despite a poor record, Penn State put a scare into OSU.
"We learned that they're a team that won't quit," Lewis said. "One thing that we corrected was not to slack off in the second half — which we didn't do against Minnesota."
