With three games remaining and post-season hopes still alive, the Ohio State men’s basketball team is back in action at 8 tonight to face a struggling Iowa Hawkeye squad at the Schottenstein Center.
The Buckeyes won 83-72 in the teams’ first meeting Jan. 25, and Iowa (13-10 overall, 5-7 Big Ten) has won only two of its six games since.
OSU (13-11 overall, 6-7 Big Ten) is coming off a weekend victory over the Purdue Boilermakers and looks to sweep the Hawkeyes in what the team considers a must-win situation.
“This is the critical part of the season,” said forward Zach Williams. “We’ve been waiting to go on a run. Hopefully, we can go on a four-game winning streak and that would be our best-case scenario.”
Though the victory over Purdue on Saturday is behind them, the key for the Buckeyes tonight will be to play with the same intensity.
“We’ve got to jump right on them from the start and keep our composure,” Williams said.
OSU hopes for the same success out of its zone defense, as well as offensive execution, to defeat the Hawkeyes.
“They play real well together,” said guard Sean Connolly. “They have a real good motion offense. It’s going to be a big battle, and we’ve got to play as good as we did the other night to beat them.”
Iowa creates potential matchup problems for OSU. The Hawkeyes play three big men in their line up against a smaller, more guard-oriented Buckeye team.
Coach Jim O’Brien said OSU will focus on strong rebounding and containing Iowa’s leading scorer, guard Chauncey Leslie, who averages 16 points per game.
“We’re going to have a hard time stopping him,” said guard Brent Darby. “We need to slow him down and keep him out of the lane.”
Both OSU and Iowa find themselves in the middle of the Big Ten standings as the regular season winds down, but the road ahead looks rougher for the Hawkeyes. They play three out of their last four games away, while OSU closes out the season at Northwestern and at home against Michigan State.
“We’re very similar in the position that we’re in,” O’Brien said. “Our guys understand the gravity of where we are and the importance of this game.”
The idea that OSU can win out and receive an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament is still a possibility. The team realizes its performance the next two weeks will make or break their post-season hopes.
“I think we can win all three games,” he said. “I don’t think it’s being too optimistic, I think it’s being realistic.”
“We know what’s expected of us,” Darby said. “We know we’ve got to win out to give ourselves a chance.”
