Ohio State-ment

Eight of the 15 teams ranked ahead of No. 16 IU lost this weekend, but the Hoosiers narrowly avoided the same fate, clutching victory away from No. 18 Ohio State in the final seconds, 81-79.\nSaturday's game marked Ohio State's first loss of the season and kept IU at a perfect 2-0 in the Big Ten. Only IU, Northwestern and Wisconsin remain unbeaten after just two conference games.\nSenior guard Marshall Strickland sealed the win by stripping the ball from the Buckeyes' Matt Terwilliger as time expired. Just moments earlier, Strickland gave IU the two-point advantage by sinking two free throws after drawing a charge that subsequently fouled out Ohio State's leading scorer Terence Dials.\nStrickland proved invaluable to the Hoosiers in the final three possessions of the contest. Before the strip, before the free throws and before the charge, with the game still knotted at 79, the senior came to the rescue again by tying up Ohio State's J.J. Sullinger and giving possession to the Hoosiers. Sullinger had grabbed an offensive rebound after a Dials miss, and seemed apt to give the Buckeyes the lead. But Strickland stepped in and kept Sullinger from going back up with a shot.\nAfter the game, IU coach Mike Davis was asked to rate the performance of his senior guard in the clutch. \n"What's the highest number?" Davis said. "Marshall played 40 minutes. He was, to me, the best conditioned athlete on the court ... He got a rebound/jump ball, he took the charge, got the steal at the end, hit the two free throws. That was four things he did for us in 15 to 20 seconds."\nStrickland's 15-point contribution was bested only by senior forward Marco Killingsworth's 26-point effort. After a quiet start to his Big Ten career against Michigan Tuesday night, the 268-pound transfer settled back into form shooting 9-14 from the field and forcing all the Ohio State big men into foul trouble. Every Buckeye 6-foot-5 or taller who saw significant court time finished the game with four or more fouls.\nBut the whistle that drew the most attention from the IU bench came with roughly five minutes remaining in the game. Killingsworth attempted a shot over Dials, who had four fouls at the time. When the whistle blew, Assembly Hall's crowd of 17,278 erupted, believing Dials had fouled out. But the referees charged the foul to Matt Sylvester, keeping Dials in the game. The Buckeye center then proceeded to score nine more points in the final minutes before missing his last attempt, after which Strickland forced a jump ball.\n"I would be a different coach if that (shot) went down," Davis said. "Dials played a fantastic game ... We knew he couldn't defend Marco and we knew Marco was going to have a hard time defending him."\nDials' final shot aside, Davis would also have been a different coach had the Hoosiers not pulled a 180-degree shift at halftime. IU shot 38 percent in the first half and 30 percent from three -- both well below the season averages. Comparatively, Ohio State shot 48 percent in the first half and led by as many as 17 before entering the locker room ahead by eight.\nSophomore guard Robert Vaden described Davis' halftime speech as "very heated," but wouldn't fully disclose what was said. \n"We came out with a lot more energy in the second half," Vaden said. "(Davis) does that every game that we are down. He says something to us that gets us going in the second half."\nThe law of averages became apparent after Davis' motivational pep talk, as the Hoosiers shot the lights out in the second half -- 65 percent from the field and 63 percent from three. \n"They are a prolific shooting team," Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. "It's incredible how well they shoot the basketball."\nIU continues its 10-day gauntlet of ranked opponents when it travels to No. 7 Michigan State Wednesday.