From AP via TimesUnionLine.com --  Ohio State lost national player of the year Evan Turner to the NBA, but Buckeyes fans need not worry. Deshaun Thomas is coming. The 6-foot-7 forward from Fort Wayne Luers was the top vote-getter for The Associated Press 2010 Indiana all-state boys basketball team. He finished a dazzling prep career with 3,018 points, the third-highest total in state history, and was named last month to the AP All-Century Team, the only player active in 2010 who made the ... Read More

By: Doug Lesmerises (Cleveland Plain Dealer) -- Ohio State star Evan Turner officially announced this afternoon that he is leaving Ohio State with one year of eligibility remaining and will enter the NBA Draft. The news was not a surprise for the college basketball's national player of the year, who is expected to be a top three pick in the NBA Draft. "It was honestly just a personal choice," Turner said at a news conference in Columbus. "It was a win-win situation regardless. I ... Read More

By: Nick Otte (TheLantern.com) -- Ohio State junior guard Evan Turner has often expressed a desire to be one of the best players to ever play basketball in a Buckeye uniform. Turner may have cemented his place in that discussion Sunday when he was named the Naismith National Player of the Year award winner, something no OSU player has ever done. He was given the honor at the National Association of Basketball Coaches' Guardians of the Game awards show in Indianapolis, Ind. "As the first ... Read More

By: Doug Lesmerises (Cleveland Plain Dealer) -- INDIANAPOLIS -- Ohio State coach Thad Matta kicked open the door of the gym during a 6 a.m. practice and told Evan Turner: "You either grow up or you go home. I don't care which one it is. Here's the door. It's open, you can leave." Telling the story Friday, one from Turner's freshman season, Matta's ending was obvious. Seated at the head table near Oscar Robertson, accepting a college basketball national player of the year award ... Read More

By: Nick Otte (TheLantern.com) -- After Ohio State was ousted in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16, junior Evan Turner’s dream of hoisting a National Championship trophy this weekend fell by the wayside. However, the Buckeye point guard was in Indianapolis accepting a different trophy. He was named the AP’s Player of the Year Friday, receiving 54 of the 65 votes, and is OSU’s first recipient of the award since Gary Bradds in 1964. Turner led the Buckeyes in nearly every statistical category this season, and ... Read More

By: Jared Fialko (WOWKTV.com) -- It's clear how much Evan Turner meant to Ohio State. Without him in the starting lineup thanks to a few broken bones in his back, the Buckeyes went .500. With him even remotely healthy, the Bucks won the Big Ten. On Monday, Turner got his due, named to the Associated Press All-American First Team. Turner received all but one first-team vote from the 65-member national media panel. "I'm definitely honored to be a part of a team like that and to be recognized. ... Read More

From: FoxSports.com via AP -- ST. LOUIS -- Ohio State has one of the best players in the country in Evan Turner. Tennessee has what seems like an endless supply of nasty, stingy defenders. No secret who's going to win that battle. Brian Williams scored the go-ahead basket on a tip-in with 32 seconds left, and J.P. Prince was relentless on Turner, blocking a desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer Friday night to lead Tennessee past Ohio State 76-73 and into the NCAA tournament's round of ... Read More

BY: TOM TIMMERMANN (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH) -- When she doesn't expect it, someone will come up to Iris James, the mother of Ohio State basketball star Evan Turner, and compliment her about her son. Only it has nothing to do with basketball. "I just met a lady here on Friday," James said Sunday afternoon in Milwaukee, after Ohio State had beaten Georgia Tech to advance to the Midwest Regional that starts in St. Louis on Friday. "Her son had broken his back on the ... Read More

By: Troy Current (BleacherReport.com) -- The Ohio State Buckeyes Men's Basketball team has had a very successful season thus far but will look to extend their season Friday March 26th as they take on the Tennessee Volunteers in a Sweet 16 match-up in St. Louis. In order for the Buckeyes to get to the Elite 8, Evan Turner, one of the front runners for National Player of the Year, will have to step up his game and get others involved to try to subdue the pressure oriented defense of the ... Read More

By: Doug Lesmerises (Cleveland Plain Dealer) -- COLUMBUS -- The mission was to make Thad Matta's players tougher, and Dave Richardson's military training, as well as his success as a power lifter and decades in college strength and conditioning, made his acceptance of the goal very clear. "Coach, I know what toughness is," Richardson said. So through a grueling summer of off-season training, his players running through a sandpit, around an obstacle course and up the steps of Ohio Stadium, Richardson pushed the Ohio State ... Read More

By: By Blake Oestriecher (TigerWeekly.com) -- Of the 4.8 million people who filled out brackets on ESPN's NCAA Tournament Challenge, zero were perfect after the first round. It's really a testament to the balance in this year's tournament. There are no truly great teams in the field, but plenty of really good ones and even more that have flown under the radar on the way to setting up a Sweet 16 that could be a classic. Midwest: Tennessee vs. Ohio St. - In Tennessee's third Sweet ... Read More

From: Sports Illustrated via AP -- COLUMBUS - It's 10 o'clock on a Monday night in mid-March, the early NIT games are over and even avid basketball fans across the country are about to call it a day. That's when Ohio State coach Thad Matta gets around to answering his stack of phone messages. "I'm just sitting down to dinner with my family,'' he says. Some 14 hours into what is a day off for his players, Matta is bone tired yet exhilarated. He ... Read More

By: Doug Lesmerises (Cleveland Plain Dealer) -- Looking back at David Lighty and ahead to Tennessee: * Thad Matta can't say enough good things about David Lighty. He may wind up as one of Matta's all-time favorites. He is still peeved that Lighty wasn't on the Big Ten's All-Defensive team, and he talked about what a great job Lighty did Sunday guarding bigger Georgia Tech players after Ohio State's 75-66 win. "He's the best defender in college basketball," Matta said. "He can guard any position ... Read More