Message from Alex: Joel coming at you with his recap of last night’s game and what it means to OSU’s season. His username will be created shortly. Enjoy and Go Bucks!

Last night the Buckeyes earned their second consecutive home win versus a ranked team, and fourth win in a row overall, with a 64-58 win at home vs. #16 Minnesota. With the win, the Buckeyes take sole possession of third place in the Big Ten (17-5, 7-4), and remain two games behind league leader Michigan State. The loss drops Minnesota to 17-5 overall and 6-5 in the conference. Leading the way for the Buckeyes was Evan Turner with 18 points and 10 rebounds, but OSU also got double digit contributions from BJ Mullens (10), William Buford (11), Jon Diebler (11), and Jeremie Simmons (10). The Buckeyes led 29-26 at halftime and built it to as much as a 46-36 lead with just under 9 minutes left after a trey from Diebler. Minnesota’s Blake Hoffarber scored all 19 of his points in the second half on 6-10 shooting from behind the arc to keep the Golden Gophers in it. After Damien Johnson cut the Buckeye lead to 57-54 with 1:29 left, Turner hit 7 free throws to keep Minnesota from coming back. The Buckeyes’ matchup zone helped hold Minnesota’s leading scorer Lawrence Westbrook to only 4 points on 2-10 shooting and the only other player to reach double digits for Minnesota was PF Damian Johnson who had a double double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

This win was an important one for the Buckeyes, as they improve to 5-5 against the RPI top 50, improving their chances for March Madness. As I said in the preview, our only marquee wins were against Butler and Purdue, but now we can add Minnesota to the list. More importantly, with seven games left on our Big Ten schedule, we can still win a regular season conference title. Right now Joe Lunardi of ESPN projects us as an eight seed, but with all seven of our remaining games winnable, I think we can jump up to the five-six seed range. The Buckeyes next challenge is this upcoming Saturday the 14^th up in Madison against the Wisconsin Badgers in a night game being broadcasted on ESPN.