Armon Bassett and Bruce Pearl said similar things at the NCAA Tournament, but Pearl knew how to keep Ohio's biggest weapon silent.
The Tennessee coach and Ohio's most dangerous player in the postseason both reiterated that it only takes one game to make a difference.
Bassett told his teammates they had to be better than the opposition on just one day. At the Dunkin' Donuts Center last week, their 97-83 manhandling of Georgetown in the first round proved they had that ability.
But Bassett, also the Bobcats' most experienced player, knew that Tennessee would bring a whole different ballgame.
For a month, Ohio had been the better team on the court. The Bobcats outplayed every team in the Mid-American Conference tournament and had to make it to Providence the hard way.
As the No. 9 seed in the MAC and the No. 14 in the Midwest regional, not too many dollars were put on the table for Ohio.
Pearl had a chance to watch the Bobcats dismantle the Hoyas and most likely saw what many others did: a quick move off the ball screen opened up Ohio's jump shooting and allowed the guards to do damage.
D.J. Cooper and Bassett never had the room to get involved against Pearl's efficient and quick defense. He was perfectly content with letting John Groce's forwards and big men handle the basketball, and in the end, he was right.
Ohio's bench did not score in the game and Pearl said that using an array of players helped his team wear down the Bobcats, who employed seven players. Tennessee's depth and 10-player rotation enabled it to send Ohio State packing, and ice-cold shooting from Buckeye guard Jon Diebler helped the Volunteers advance.
Groce's big men (Kenneth van Kempen and DeVaughn Washington) combined for 22 points, which won't accumulate many wins.
It takes unselfish players to play this way
Pearl said. And I think that's the direction we go in as we come to tournament time.
And the depth has a chance to help us at the end of games and at the end of the season.
All of the talk before the second-round game concerned the Bobcats' ability to shut down Wayne Chism the Volunteers' power forward/guard hybrid superstar. The 6-foot-9 monster was limited to just seven shot attempts but his rebounding and defensive intensity didn't let the Bobcats get any closer than five points.
Ten Volunteers scored
and no player other than J.P. Prince or Scotty Hopson hit double figures. In every sense of the cliche
it was a team effort.
We had the advantage inside, Pearl said. Part of the reason why you develop a bench is so that you can have this kind of balance and you can put your team in position for different guys to be able to step up on different nights.
You look at the balance and the shots that were taken and the minutes that were played
and I thought that's part of the reason why we were able to wear them down.
Ohio was clearly the more aggressive team against Georgetown but didn't look to possess the same fire from the opening tip with Tennessee. Tommy Freeman was feeling it early, but Pearl's game plan put the kibosh on anything the Bobcats' guards wanted to do.
Tennessee did well playing an Ohio-like game: getting in the open floor and scoring on the break. The Volunteers outscored the Bobcats 20-2 on the rush and repeatedly got into the tough areas. They attempted just 14 3-pointers, compared to 26 for Ohio.
All 68 points scored by the Bobcats came from starters.
They turned us over a couple of times but we also got a lot of balls at the rim
Pearl said. (I) didn't get to the point where I was too terribly concerned that we were going to blow it.
Physically, we were a better team than Ohio and we played better - that's why we won.
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31053,2010-03-28 22:47:00,Brave New World: Athens fails to meet city's quaint reputation,When I meet Athens residents or head home to Cleveland's eastern suburbs
people often ask me if I enjoy OU. What they want to hear is very obvious: Yes, I love the Harvard on the Hocking. Unfortunately
I can never proclaim my OU passion with 100 percent conviction.,When I meet Athens residents or head home to Cleveland's eastern suburbs
people often ask me if I enjoy OU. What they want to hear is very obvious: Yes, I love the Harvard on the Hocking. Unfortunately
I can never proclaim my OU passion with 100 percent conviction.
It seems strange to many that a college student would not love it here. Athens is
