No. 17 Ohio State Hands Northwestern 58-44 Loss – Ohio State Buckeyes
1/15/2000 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 15, 2000
Box Score
By NANCY ARMOUR
AP Sports Writer
EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) – Someday, when the Northwestern Wildcats are all grown up, they’ll be able to give Ohio State a game. For now, though, the Wildcats are just too young and Ohio State too talented.
Scoonie Penn scored 15 points, Brian Brown 14 and Ken Johnson added 12 Saturday night as the No. 17 Buckeyes overcame a sluggish outing for a 58-44 victory over Northwestern.
Ohio State (11-3, 3-1 Big Ten) has won seven of its last eight, while Northwestern (4-11, 0-3) lost its sixth straight.
The game wasn’t nearly as close as the final score indicates. The Buckeyes didn’t score a basket in the last 4:45 while Northwestern finished with a 10-0 run.
It was hardly a Final Four night for the Buckeyes. They only shot 44 percent (21-of-48) and Michael Redd, who came into the game averaging 15.6 points, was held to 10. Ohio State also had 19 turnovers, including two three-second violations in the first eight minutes of the game.
But Ohio State’s roster is deep enough to overcome most lapses, especially against a Northwestern team of freshmen and sophomores. After the Wildcats pared what had been a 16-point lead to 28-20 at halftime, Penn opened the second half with back-to-back 3-pointers. Brown added another, and Ohio State was back up 34-23 with 18:08 left.
Ben Johnson scored five points to get the Wildcats within 37-29 with 15:14 left, but Brown made two free throws, Penn converted on a three-point play and Northwestern never got within single digits again.
Ben Johnson led Northwestern with 18 points. The Buckeyes started strong, slapping away Wildcats passes and wrestling the ball away as they took a quick, 14-0 lead. The game was so lopsided, Ken Johnson had seven points and Brown five before Northwestern could get a basket.
With five turnovers in the first four minutes, the Wildcats were so overmatched it looked like they might go the entire first half without a basket. But Jason Burke finally broke the drought, hitting a driving layup with 15:15 left to make it 14-2.
Though they didn’t look particularly sharp, they used their quickness, size and defense to continue pulling away. Penn hit a pull-up jumper from about eight feet out, Ken Johnson stole the ball and took it in for a layup and Reese hit a layup as Ohio State took a 20-4 lead with 10:12 left.
But then Ohio State got stale, going more than two minutes without a basket three times in the last nine minutes of the half. The Wildcats, meanwhile, went on a 3-point flurry. Winston Blake, Collier Drayton, Ben Johnson and David Newman all hit 3s, and Slobodan Ocokoljic was called for goaltending as Northwestern pared the lead to 28-16 with 3:35 left in the half.
Ohio State outrebounded the Wildcats 20-12 in the first half, and held Northwestern to just 31 percent (8-of-26) from the floor.
