by Bob Baptist, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH , The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio State men's basketball coach Thad Matta, in turn, had Turner and his teammates hit the ground, running, at 6 a.m. the next day. A loss to an NCAA Division II program has consequences.

And brings change.

That game was the last time the Buckeyes played primarily man-to-man defense. Aghast at how his young guards got caught under screens, miscommunicated on switches and gave up back-door alley-oops, Matta switched to a zone and, for better or worse, rode it for two seasons.

But when the Buckeyes open their 2009-10 schedule tonight with an exhibition against Walsh, an NAIA Division II team, they are expected to be back in man-to-man despite the fair amount of success they had with the zone.

"I wouldn't say we're (going to be) exclusively a man-to-man team," Matta said. "I think there's going to be times we'll play a lot of zone because the last couple of years it's kept us in some games we probably shouldn't have been in and even won us some games."

But Matta, like a majority of coaches, believes man-to-man is a superior defense. So does David Lighty, who earned his minutes as a freshman three years ago as a defensive role player.

"When you hear 'zone,' it just makes you lazy," Lighty said. "It's like, 'OK, I'm protecting my area, I'm good.'

"With man, you've got to hold yourself accountable. You know who scored. You know whose man it was. There's no (sloughing off the blame)."

In the seven games Lighty played last season before a broken foot sidelined him, the Ohio State zone was rated the nation's most efficient based on points allowed (73.9) per 100 possessions.

But without Lighty, "Our zone didn't really work," center Zisis Sarikopoulos said. The defense finished 65th in efficiency (95.1).

Lighty's loss exposed two other weaknesses inherent in zones: defensive rebounding and shooting gaps. Big Ten opponents averaged nearly 11 offensive rebounds per game and made 38.4 percent of their three-point attempts against Ohio State.

Only Indiana surrendered a higher percentage.

"Because you're constantly changing your responsibilities," Purdue coach Matt Painter said. "We don't stay stationary a lot. We cut through (the defense) a lot. So they're constantly pushing a guy off (onto someone else). Now if you get caught in between your response-bility of who your guy is and the shot goes up, you're literally in between."

Man-to-man eliminates the confusion.

"There won't be any gaps or wide-open three-point areas like there were in the zone," Lighty said.

When the Buckeyes last played more man-to-man defense than zone three years ago, they ranked among the Big Ten's best teams in defense and rebounding. Granted, they had Greg Oden, but also big guards such as Lighty, Daequan Cook, Ron Lewis and Ivan Harris.

They have more big guards on this team.

"Being active is something we're probably going to be good at if we play hard the whole game, because we're so long and everybody is interchangeable," Lighty said. "I think the offense is going to have a little trouble with that."

bbaptist@dispatch.com

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