It was Woody Hayes who once memorably proclaimed that the best thing about freshmen is they become sophomores. Of course, there are exceptions to that rule. Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. proved that just a season ago.
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But the wisdom of the legendary Ohio State football coach’s words were proven Saturday at Value City Arena, where the Buckeyes and Florida definitely did not reprise their NCAA title game of last spring. The dominant players of that game are gone, spread from Portland (Oden) to Chicago (the Gators’ Joakim Noah) to Memphis (Conley) and from Greece (Gator Lee Humphrey) to Belgium (Ron Lewis) to Finland (Ivan Harris).
In many of their places instead are green freshmen. Four of them started this game, six were often on the court together and nine played for at least a minute, which is why it was no surprise both teams often struggled and stumbled.
This was true even for the Buckeyes, no matter that they ran off to a 62-49 victory. They were steadied by senior point Jamar Butler, catalyzed by sophomore guard David Lighty and helped by senior forward Matt Terwilliger.
“The funny thing is, looking out there at times, the average age was 18 for both teams,” Buckeyes coach Thad Matta said, exaggerating just a bit.
“[We’re] just trying to do things better [every day]. Today we did some things better than we did a week ago. But we still make some plays that make me scratch my head.”
Evan Turner, his freshman guard from Chicago and St. Joseph High School, made one of those. With 5.6 seconds left until halftime and Gators guard Jai Lucas dribbling aimlessly near half-court, he fouled Lucas and sent him to the line.
Here are the figures that truly reveal just how maddening and unpredictable a youthful team can be. In the first 6:29 of this game, the Buckeyes scored just two points. They then scored 10 in the next 2:46. In the following 3:22, they scored just one point. They then scored eight in the next 54 seconds. In the following 2:56, they scored just two points. They then scored 10 in the last 3:33 of the first half.
“The discouraging thing is we didn’t flow and attack,” Matta moaned. “We stood around a little too much.”
Yet compared to the Gators his group was hot lava flowing down a mountainside. Florida went longer than six minutes without a point late in the first half and scored just seven in the last 9:08.
The Gators then managed just 11 more in the second half’s first 10:50 and ended the day shooting 33.3 percent (19 of 57) and 17.4 percent on their threes (4 of 23) while failing to solve the Buckeyes’ zone. Nick Calathes, the best of their freshmen, was scoreless in the second half. Chandler Parsons, another of their freshmen, was scoreless in the first half.
Lucas, the most important of their freshmen as the point guard, committed five turnovers and handed out just one assist.
“I thought our guys pressed,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said. “There’s a deep inner confidence and there’s surface confidence. There are times, when things aren’t going well for you, do you have that deep, internal confidence to almost erase your shots when they’re not going in and say to yourself, ‘The next one’s going down, the next one’s going down’? … Do you then shoot the ball with great confidence? I didn’t see our team, in the second half, shoot the ball with great confidence.”
Maybe next season, when all these freshmen are sophomores, that will be the case. But for now, for both teams, the reality is as Matta said.
“It’s more, let’s just keep getting better,” he said. “Just keep getting better.”
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