We have now seen three of America's best players play at Assembly Hall this year. In December, it was John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins of Kentucky. On Wednesday, it was Ohio State's Evan Turner.
Turner, unquestionably, is the top player in the Big Ten, and I would probably favor him for national player of the year honors. But despite OSU beating IU by 25 and 17, respecitively, in the two meetings Turner didn't play an extremely signifcant part of either game.
On Jan. 6, Turner made his debut after a back injury kept him out a number of games. Perhaps the unknown as to whether Turner would play or not troubled IU in its pre-game preparation. It certainly gave OSU a spark of energy and excitement.
But Turner played just 9 first half minutes due to two early fouls, and recorded just 3 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist and a pair of turnovers in that period. At that point, Ohio State was ahead 38-20 and, though Turner finished with a respectable 8 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists in 20 minutes (he had no second half turnovers), the damage was done by Jon Diebler, William Buford and IU's countless unforced turnovers.
On Wednesday, Turner played just 2:35 before picking up his second foul in the first half. "The Villian" put up 2 points and 2 rebounds in his 155 seconds of first half play and was on the bench when OSU extended a 22-20 lead to 34-20 going into the half.
The Chicago native played 18 second half minutes and helped preserve the large Buckeye lead, finishing his 21 minutes with 10 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 blocks and 1 assist - not a bad stat line at all, though much of the damage was done at the end of the first half.
IU coach Tom Crean said the team "did some good things on Turner," but I think that only says so much. Turner certainly made a difference early in the second half when the game was not out of reach for IU.
In the first 6:37 of the second frame, E.T. recorded 5 assists, a block, a steal and a rebound. Later came the rest of his points, primarily at the free throw line, but he proved why he is America's most versatile player.
At the end of the day, slowing one guy -- if you can call it that considering Turner went for 10, 7 and 6 in roughly half the game's minutes -- only means so much against such a good team. The same could be said for IU's effort on Kentucky's Wall, holding the freshman phenom to 11 points (but he had 7 rebounds, 8 assists and only 1 turnover).
The Hoosiers beat themselves in many regards, giving up a number of easy buckets to Buford, as well as the likes of Dallas Lauderdale and Kyle Madsen.
Lauderdale went for 5 points, 5 rebounds and 0 blocks on Jan. 6 versus IU, but he had 14 points, 8 rebounds and 7 blocks on Wednesday.
Madsen, meanwhile, had a few 6-point games and once tallied 7 versus Alcorn State in November. He went off for 11 points in 9 minutes.
