Ohio State sinks Illinois with three-pointer barrage, 72-53
CHAMPAIGN - Illinois' budding romance with basketball excellence came to an ugly end Sunday.
Picture the Illini getting down on one knee to propose and the object of their ardor slapping them silly.
Ohio State's relationship with basketball excellence, on the other hand, grows stronger by the game. Anyone else hear wedding bells?
Led by junior guard Evan Turner, who came up 2 assists shy of a triple-double, the 13th-ranked Buckeyes drilled Illinois 72-53 before a silenced sellout crowd at Assembly Hall.
"This is kind of a different game than I've ever played in," said Illini junior forward Bill Cole. "There's really not one thing we want to take from this game."
Ohio State (20-6, 10-3), which recorded the largest road victory in Champaign since NCAA champion Indiana's 28-point win in 1976, has taken nine league games in a row to jump back into a Big Ten first-place tie with Michigan State.
The Illini (17-9, 9-4) never came close to toppling their third ranked opponent in nine days as OSU led by double figures for the final 30 minutes.
Presuming the Illini owned some momentum after their win Tuesday at Wisconsin, the Buckeyes yanked it away from the start.
"I talked all week about not trusting happiness," said Illinois coach Bruce Weber. "It's never as good as it seems - I was anticipating this a little bit, but I never thought it would be this bad, to be honest."
From the top on down, the Buckeyes won every matchup in front of Bulls czar John Paxson, several top-flight recruits and a national CBS audience.
Turner and Illinois' Demetri McCamey rarely went head-to-head - making it hard to compare the former St. Joseph High School teammates - but Turner finished with 16 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists to account for 34 points in 38 minutes.
McCamey, who didn't score his first basket until 11:46 left in the game, finished with 9 points, 9 assists and 2 rebounds to account for 27 points in 37 minutes.
"Once the game first started, I told him it was going to be a long night," said Turner, relaying the entirety of the friends' trash talk. "That was it."
Ohio State juniors Jon Diebler and David Lighty made their own statements with killing plays virtually every time they touched the ball.
Diebler (18 points) nailed 6 of 11 3-pointers - the only shots he tried - as he'd either take advantage of bruising screens to curl for open shots or he'd wait for Turner to create and kick.
Lighty (17 points) threw down two first-half dunks in transition and added three rainbow 3-pointers.
"We feel like we're getting back to the form that, you know, Coach (Thad) Matta was dreaming about before I got hurt," Turner said with a sly glance at the Buckeyes' boss.
"Maybe for a consistent 40 minutes, yeah," Matta said. "We've had some pretty good moments throughout the course of the season. But you're hoping as you're creeping into February, you keep shrinking the gap of when you're not as effective as you want to be."
Meanwhile, Ohio State's unexpected reliance on a 1-3-1 zone stifled the Illini. They shot 17 percent on 3-pointers and 34 percent overall.
"We practiced zone for a little bit (Saturday)," McCamey said. "But we expected them to go 'man.' They've been 'man' all year.
"I think it is a wake-up call for us. We had 2 big wins and they just brought us back down."