Super freshman Greg Oden took over in the second half and had a career-high 29 points plus 10 rebounds to lead the seventh-ranked Buckeyes to an 82-63 victory over Iowa on Saturday night.
"Oden is a handful and we didn't handle him very well," said Iowa coach Steve Alford, whose team recovered from a 15-point deficit to cut the lead to four points in the second half. "They beat us by 19 and got us by 20 in points in the paint. It was pretty clear and pretty easy to see where they won the game."
Besides hitting 12 of 13 shots from the field, Oden, who turns 19 on Monday, hit all five of his free throws while shooting left-handed. He still wears an elastic brace on his shooting hand - which he occasionally uses while shooting - but he continues to use his off hand at the line.
"It was all my teammates," said Oden, who also had an assist and two blocked shots. "They got me the ball in the right spots and I had nothing else to do but to dunk it."
Oden had several rim-shaking dunks that brought a capacity crowd to its feet. He also controlled the air space around the paint, forcing the Hawkeyes to go elsewhere for their points.
"I thought he was tremendous," Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. "He finished well. He got real active the last 10 minutes defensively and as always he rebounded well. When he's finishing down there it makes us a lot better basketball team."
No kidding.
Providing the outside portion of the Buckeyes' attack was Oden's high school runningmate, Mike Conley Jr. He had 10 assists to give him an Ohio State freshman-record 129.
Ron Lewis had 12 points and Daequan Cook added 11 - including five during a pivotal 13-0 second-half run - for Ohio State (16-3, 4-1 Big Ten), which has won six of its last seven.
Late in the first half Conley charged into 7-foot Iowa center Seth Gorney, resulting in Gorney having to get two stitches in his face. He did not play again, opening the door for Oden to take the game over in the second half.
"The guy who gets overshadowed in this whole thing is Conley," Alford said. "He did in high school because Greg is such a super talent. But that's a pretty special point guard. He takes good shots, he knows his role and he had a 10-to-3 assist-to-turnover ratio. He's in line to break a lot of records here at a university that's produced a lot of great point guards."
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Five-star prospect from Southwest Atlanta Christian School, making the McDonald's All-America team as well as third-team Parade and EA Sports All-America teams following his senior year ... Rated as high as No. 6 nationally (Hoop Scoop) and was the top-rated point guard in the country according to Rivals, No. 3 by Scout.com ... Final PrepStars.com ranking was No. 20.
A 3.5 GPA student who was a member of the Future Business Leaders of America and the Senior Beta Club ... Played in the summers with the Atlanta Celtics AAU team.