By: Doug Lesmerises (Cleveland Plain Dealer) — COLUMBUS, Ohio — Losing is easy. After a 22-point loss at Wisconsin 16 days ago, Ohio State center Dallas Lauderdale said the Buckeyes weren’t even tired.

“It’s easy to lay down and just let somebody keep punching you, and that’s exactly what we did,” Lauderdale said Friday. “After the Purdue game everybody was wheezing, everybody was tired because we fought, and the Wisconsin game wasn’t like that.”

Tonight’s second shot at Wisconsin for Ohio State is a test of how much the return of one of the nation’s best players, and a comeback victory over a Top 10 opponent, can change a team.

With a healthy Evan Turner offensively and its 1-2-2 full-court press defensively, Ohio State proved Tuesday night why no opponent should feel safe with a lead. The Buckeyes’ 70-66 win at No. 6 Purdue came after the Boilermakers led by 10 with 4:10 left. Ohio State closed the win with an 18-4 run.

Earlier in the season, Ohio State cut an 11-point North Carolina lead with 1:39 to play to a two-point lead with 15 seconds left before losing, 77-73. And even without Turner, the Buckeyes sliced Butler’s 17-point lead with 4:35 to play down to a 3-point lead with 55 seconds remaining before losing, 74-66. That’s what they remembered Tuesday — not the Wisconsin debacle.

“Our attitude was, we’d been in this position before,” Lauderdale said. “With North Carolina, that was a huge confidence builder in giving us the momentum that we’re able to come back from a lead like that.”

Actually finishing off the comeback Tuesday was what OSU coach Thad Matta had been waiting for, and he hopes that win brings a new level of confidence to the Buckeyes. Ohio State wants to prove that lying down on New Year’s Eve was an anomaly, the result of a rusty team off a nine-day layoff, opening conference play without its leader. Lauderdale admitted the obvious, that playing without Turner changed the Buckeyes, but he said that didn’t explain not playing hard.

“In the Wisconsin game, we did the exact opposite of what we did in the Purdue game,” said Lauderdale, a Solon High School graduate. “I think we just gave up. We stopped fighting, we stopped executing the offense, we didn’t run the plays we were supposed to run. Walking off knowing that you didn’t give it your all, that feeling is indescribable.”

As Matta astutely pointed out, the goal is to not get down by double digits near the end of a game. But with Turner penetrating, and shooters ready for his kick-outs if he’s triple-teamed, and that full-court press with the 6-foot-7 Turner at the point of it, the Buckeyes are built for comebacks. Part of the press’ success comes because Ohio State works on it a lot but only employs it only under the right circumstances.

“We don’t use it constantly so I think they’re not always expecting it when we jump into it,” backup big man Kyle Madsen said. “Evan up front is so long and has such good anticipation, I think he deflects a lot of passes and [the other players] are flying around stealing the ball, and it’s kind of like if we get a couple of those passes we kind of get in the flow and the other team starts maybe getting a little bit nervous and throwing it away even more.”

It’s not what Matta wants, but it sure would be interesting to see what happens tonight if the Buckeyes are down by 10 with four minutes to play.

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