 "Photo: Matthew Hashiguchi")
Before the Big Ten season, coach Thad Matta emphasized to his young team that nothing would come easy in this conference grind.
He apparently forgot about Northwestern.
OSU dusted the woeful Wildcats, 73-41, on Wednesday night at the Schottenstein Center.
It was OSU's largest margin of victory in more than a year, their 14th-straight win over the Big Ten's high-minded kid brother and their 24th-straight over Northwestern in Columbus.
"A great team effort," Matta said. "Everybody did a good job of doing what we wanted them to going in."
Every ingredient of a good blowout was present here. There were the violent alley-oops, a crowd-delighting dunk from 6-foot point guard Mike Conley Jr., the walk-ons seeing the floor, the ritual bestowing of the technical foul on the opposing coach and the Buckeye fans taking part in their favorite pastime: leaving early.
Yes, these were good times.
Get used to it.
The games may not all come as easy as they did against Northwestern, a team that is 0-5 in conference play and has fallen to the likes of Cornell and Tennessee Tech. But as they enter the grind of a decidedly weak conference slate, OSU does not play another ranked team before hosting No. 3 Wisconsin on Feb. 25.
What transformed Tuesday's win from ordinary to dominating was the brilliant guard play of Mike Conley Jr. and Jamar Butler.
Even as Northwestern employed a 1-3-1 zone determined to lock down freshman center Greg Oden, Conley slashed through the defense at will, looking for Butler outside whenever the path was blocked.
Butler, who was 4-of-5 on threes, finished with 16 points.
"Mike broke down the defense and we just found each other open on the perimeter," Butler said.
As for Conley, the Big Ten assists leader finished with 10. But it's his continuing evolution as a scoring threat that's most critical. Conley finished with a career-high 17 points.
After struggling with his outside shot for much of the season, Conley was 2-of-3 from beyond the arc in Saturday's win over Tennessee and 2-of-2 last night.
"I think it was just a matter of time," Conley said. "Coach was getting on me in practice, saying keep shooting and stay confident. And once I saw a few go in, I got confident."
Inside, it was a different story. OSU finished with just 28 points in the paint, with Oden putting up just four shots - he had five points.
"It was just the way the game was being played today," Conley said. "Him having a game like that doesn't bother him at all. That's what makes him a great player."
David Briggs can be reached at briggs.166@osu.edu.
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