Sullinger, Buckeyes Power Through Syracuse On Way To Final Four

The Buckeyes truly earned their place in the Final Four.

Ohio State coach Thad Matta sized up his team in the middle of the season and had it figured for an early loss when the NCAA tournament came around.

The final weekend of March Madness is next, and the Buckeyes will be there.

Jared Sullinger recovered from first-half foul trouble to score 19 points and grab seven rebounds, helping Ohio State beat top-seeded Syracuse 77-70 on Saturday to advance to the Final Four in New Orleans. The second-seeded Buckeyes will play the winner of Sunday's Midwest Regional final between North Carolina and Kansas.

"We're not going down to New Orleans for a vacation. It's a business trip," said Sullinger, who picked up his second foul 6 minutes into the game and did not return the rest of the half. "These guys have played without me before, so they know what they have to do."

Deshaun Thomas scored 14 points with nine rebounds for Ohio State (31-7), which led by eight points with 59 seconds to play and held on after the Orange cut it to three. The Buckeyes made 13 of 14 free throws in the final 68 seconds and finished 31 of 42 from the line.

Ohio State is making its first trip to the Final Four since 2007, when it lost in the national championship game to Florida. They had lost in the regional semifinals in each of the past two seasons, and Matta wasn't even sure they would make it that far after a series of unimpressive practices.

When the Buckeyes, who spent five weeks as the No. 2 team in the nation, closed out February with three defeats in five games -- including a home loss to Wisconsin on Feb. 26 -- Matta had more reason to worry.

But he got the response he was hoping for.

"That loss opened their eyes and said, 'Hey, maybe we're not as good as we think we are,' " Matta said. "Maybe it got us pointed in the right direction."

Basketball Preview: #2 Ohio State vs. #1 Syracuse

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One of the old axioms of college basketball is that you play zone against a team that plays zone. Syracuse, which plays the best zone defense in the sport right now, has struggled recently against zones.

Ohio State coach Thad Matta, who on Saturday will be the next coach to try and solve the 2/3 when his second-seeded Buckeyes (30-7) meet the top-seeded Orange (34-2) with a berth in the Final Four at stake, was asked if he was thinking of trying to play zone against a zone.

"Not really. We're into Game 30, whatever it is. We kind of are who we are from that standpoint to be honest with you," he said Friday. 

"Going against a zone this week -- we felt like Cincinnati was going to play us like they did last night, the first half zone, and thought there was a chance we'd play Syracuse, so we went against zone in practice and left with a ton of confidence on offense because the zone was so bad. So we're not going to do that."

Syracuse's zone is far from bad, even when it's far from perfect.

Wisconsin pounded the zone with 14 3-pointers in the 64-63 East Regional semifinal loss to the Orange, but came up short down the stretch.

"I heard, I don't know when it was, a couple years ago, whatever, and I thought it was the greatest answer I've ever heard from Coach Boeheim," Matta recounted. "Somebody asked him what do you do when somebody gets really hot against your zone and they're making 3s? He said `How do you know they're not going to make them against man-to-man?' I think he has his philosophy, and he's only won 900 or however many games he's won. It works for him.

"Watching that game last night, he struck true to what he's done. Fourteen 3s, you might say, `Hey, that's good enough to get the job done.' Last night it wasn't."

Thomas, Sullinger Lead Buckeyes Past Cincinnati On Way To Elite Eight

Sullinger and the Buckeyes took over late

Jared Sullinger and the Ohio State Buckeyes had blown a 12-point lead and fallen behind Cincinnati in the second half of the East Region semifinals.

It was time for the "cool guys" to take a seat, and let the blue-collar team take over.

Sullinger scored 23 points with 11 rebounds and Ohio State turned back Cincinnati's last charge with a 17-1 run to beat the Bearcats 81-66 on Thursday night and advance to the NCAA regional finals for the first time since 2007.

"We've got two types of basketball teams: We've got the cool guys and then the blue-collar guys," Sullinger explained. "I thought to start the second half we got into the cool-guy mode and we kind of let our guard down. ... I mean, we just came out and decided to be cool guys, and they came out and they stung us, and then we got ourselves back into another basketball game."

Deshaun Thomas scored 26 points for the second-seeded Buckeyes (30-7), who will play Syracuse at the TD Garden on Saturday. Aaron Craft added 11 points -- all in the second half -- with five assists and six steals, taking charge during the second-half run that turned a four-point deficit into a double-digit lead.

Cashmere Wright scored 18 and Sean Kilpatrick had 15 for the No. 6 seeded Bearcats, who were attempting to match Big East rival Syracuse by beating a Big Ten opponent to advance to the East Regional finals. The top-seeded Orange advanced earlier Thursday by beating fourth-seeded Wisconsin 64-63.

It's the first trip to the regional finals for Ohio State since it lost in the 2007 championship game to Florida. The Buckeyes lost in the round of 16 in each of the past two years.

"Coach (Thad) Matta has been through two Sweet 16s where the train kind of stopped. And we wanted to make sure that this train was going to keep rolling," Sullinger said. "It's tremendous to be in a situation like this, and it's a blessing. But at the same time we can't lose focus."

Wearing fluorescent orange shoelaces and piping on their jerseys, Cincinnati (26-11) fell behind by 12 at the half before going on a 19-4 run early in the second. The Bearcats led 52-48 with 11:34 to play when Matta called a timeout and ripped into his team.

The Buckeyes allowed just one free throw over the next 5½ minutes.