Pat Knight led the Lamar Cardinals into Columbus to do battle with the Buckeyes on the very night that his father, former Buckeye and Indiana head coach, Bobby Knight was honored for his contribution to college basketball. The Cardinals came into the game having won 7 of their previous 8 games but struggled shooting the three and were unable to pull the upset, falling 70-50 to the Bucks. Jared Sullinger notched yet another double-double for the season with a game-high 18 points and 11 rebounds. Deshaun Thomas also continued his excellent scoring streak, matching his season average with 16 points on the game.

Like many of their earlier games this season, the Buckeyes started out slow on the offensive side of the ball. Part of that was due to the mediocre opening play from Deshaun Thomas, a suprise considering his recent success as a starter averaging 20 points per game over his last 5. With Thomas struggling, the rest of the team stepped up their work and spread out the early scoring. Unfortunately, the points were hard to find as the Bucks continued to shoot the rock poorly.

On advantage favoring the Buckeyes, however, was that the poor shooting was a mutual problem. The Cardinals had difficulty finding open looks against the tough Buckeye defense, which even managed to force a shot-clock violation early on. The few open looks Lamar did find simply would not go down. The Cards were able to take advantage of some lazy “screen-door” defense on a nice dunk, but otherwise had trouble getting the ball down low to the bucket.
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Tags: Aaron Craft, Bobby Knight, buckeyes, Cardinals, Deshaun Thomas, Evan Ravenel, Jared Sullinger, Jordan Sibert, Lamar, Lenzelle Smith, Ohio State, Pat Knight, Sam Thompson, Thad Matta, William Buford
Categories: Analysis, Basketball Analysis, College Basketball, Ohio State Basketball

The next test on the long and winding non-conference schedule for the Ohio State Buckeyes is the Pat Knight led Lamar University Cardinals. The son of Bobby boy has put together an 8-3 record this season after landing in the Southland Conference after being fired by Texas Tech at the end of the last season. Despite lobbying for plenty of other positions, getting into recruiting trouble in his first couple months in charge, and struggling to convince an undisciplined team the concept of defense — his squad has looked like one of the more competitive teams in the state of Texas.

And though I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of Pat, I do have to give him props. At least he realizes that Tuesday night is not a rematch of the 85-78 overtime loss the Cardinals suffered to Ohio early in the season (I love pot shots when there is no correlation).

Here is a look at tomorrow’s match-up between The Lamar Cardinals.

School:	Lamar University
Location:	Beaumont, Texas
Founded:	1923
Student Population:	14,522
School Type:	Public
Division:	NCAA
Conference:	Southland
Stadium:	Montagne Center
Seating:	10,080
Built:	1984
Head Coach:	Pat Knight
Year:	1st

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Tags: Deshaun Thomas, Jared Sullinger, Lamar Cardinals, Pat Knight, Pregame Glance, Thad Matta
Categories: Basketball Analysis, College Basketball, Miscellaneous, Ohio State Basketball