Lavender Scores 30 To Lead No. 19 Ohio State

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Last year Jantel Lavender was the Big Ten's player and freshman of the year - the first time anyone has ever won both awards in the same season.

She's playing as if she wants to make that player of the year award the first of four.

Lavender, the conference's leader in both categories, had 30 points and 12 rebounds to lead No. 19 Ohio State past Illinois 68-51 Thursday night.

"Hands down, Jantel Lavender is one of the best players not just in the Big Ten but in the country," Illinois coach Jolette Law said.

Lavender finished 15 of 24 from the field. The rest of the Buckeyes were just 14 of 36.

Lavender had 18 points at the half as the Buckeyes grabbed a 36-27 lead. Aggressively looking for shots and grabbing almost every available rebound, she made 9 of 15 shots and also had eight rebounds.

"I was taking my time and the shots were falling," the sophomore from Cleveland said.

Jenna Smith had 19 points and Lydia McCully 11 for Illinois (4-16, 0-9), which lost its 10th straight.

Star Allen added 13 points and 10 rebounds for Ohio State (15-3, 6-1), which had rolled over the Illini 67-35 on the road 11 days ago.

Allen was almost invisible in that game. She had two points and three rebounds in 26 minutes.

"That was a lot of motivation," she said. "I played a bad game against Minnesota (last week) and I had to pick it up."

This time Law changed things up by not doubling down on Lavender, choosing instead to play tough matchup defense and preventing the fastbreaks that had resulted in that lopsided loss.

"A lot of it was me being guarded by Jenna," Lavender said. "It was a lot of one-on-one post moves. Most of the time we see a lot of double-teams. But they didn't send too many doubles."

Shavelle Little, last year's Big Ten defensive player of the year, missed the loss to the Golden Gophers after injuring a knee. She returned to play 13 minutes.

The Buckeyes bounced back from the rare home loss, 59-56 to Minnesota. That ended an eight-game winning streak and a string of 86 consecutive home victories over unranked opponents.

"We did a good job of taking what they gave us, which is different than 11 days ago," Ohio State coach Jim Foster said.

He declined to say that his team had any more motivation or incentive after the loss to Minnesota.

"You just go play the next game," he said. "There's too much talk. You pull your shorts up and move your feet. The game's pretty simple."

Unlike the first game, the Illini stuck around. In the loss at home to Ohio State, they had trailed just 27-20 at the half but were outscored 40-15 in the second half.

Down 8-6 early, the Buckeyes took the lead for good with a 7-0 run. Samantha Prahalis had a three-point play, Ashlee Trebilcock hit a 12-foot baseline jumper and Lavender scored inside.

Law said she knew Lavender was going to have a big game the first time the Buckeyes came down the floor.

"Jantel was in a groove," Law said. "Once she hit that first shot from 19 feet, I knew she was going to be tough to stop."

Illinois cut what had been a 16-point lead to 55-47 on a three-point play by Smith with 5:19 left. But the Buckeyes countered with two free throws by Allen, a perimeter jumper by Sarah Schulze and Maria Moeller's three-point play to push the lead back to 62-47 with 3:53 left.

"We cut it to eight with (under) 6 minutes left," Law said. "I'm such a competitor. I said, 'C'mon, ladies. Smell blood. Continue to compete.' But we turned it over and didn't execute on a couple of possessions in a row. It unraveled from there."

The Buckeyes play six of their next nine on the road, but Foster was only concerned about the next one.

"We're at Purdue Sunday," was all he said.

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