Ohio State struggled early -- possibly hung-over from Christmas break or its loss to Kansas last Saturday -- but the Buckeyes responded in a big way with an 87-44 rout over Chicago State.

Deshaun Thomas scored a game-high 17 points, LaQuinton Ross scored 15 and a trio of guards (Aaron Craft, Lenzelle Smith, Jr. and Amedeo Della Valle) scored in double digits to help Ohio State secure its third 40-point victory of the season.

After shooting a miserable 31 percent in their eight-point loss to Kansas, the Buckeyes scorched the nets against Chicago State by shooting 57 percent from the field.

"When we made our first shot today, I turned to the coaches and said, 'Hey, we're 1 for 1. That's 1,000 percent. This is awesome,'" Ohio State coach Thad Matta said.

Craft elaborated, “Our shooting was better this game compared to the last few games when you look at our percentages. We are taking our shooting game a lot more seriously because we can not expect to make our shots during games without practicing them more.”

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Ohio State’s game against Winthrop Tuesday night was supposed to be a final tuneup before the Buckeyes host the No. 9 Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday.

The Eagles (4-5) gave the Buckeyes (9-1) a much bigger fight than expected, battling for all 40 minutes in a 65-55 Ohio State victory.

“You have to give Winthrop a ton of credit,” Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. “They played to win tonight.”

Deshaun Thomas was erratic, shooting just seven of 21 from the field, but that didn’t stop Ohio State’s leading scorer from posting a game-high 21 points.

The Buckeyes’ offensive performance as a whole reflected Thomas’ as the team shot just 39 percent from the field on their way to scoring a season-low 65 points.

“I wasn’t ready mentally and I knew my shots were not going in,” Thomas said after the game.

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Ohio State coach Thad Matta wanted his team to continue the success it found against its last opponent -- Long Beach State -- after two miserable shooting performances against Duke and Northern Kentucky.

Doing so would require an outstanding performance against one of the better defensive teams in the country in Savannah State, who held Florida’s high-flying offense to a season-low 58 points earlier this year.

The Buckeyes answered in a big way Wednesday night, shooting 48 percent from the floor and 53 percent from the 3-point line in an 85-45 demolition of the Savannah State Tigers.

Four Buckeyes scored in double digits, led by Deshaun Thomas’ game-high 22 points. Thomas scored 21 of his 22 points in the first half and talked about the passion his team took to the court after the game.

"If we have great pace to our offense things will go well. The one thing coach preached before the game was having passion,” Thomas said. “And we had passion out there."

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The No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes defeated the Northern Kentucky Norse 70-43 Saturday night, improving to 5-1 on the year after their close loss to Duke last Wednesday.

The 27-point victory seemed to be just what the doctor ordered, but Thad Matta was singing a different tune after the game.

"The number one thing I wanted to see is if we would get up off the mat and have a little fight to us," Matta said. "I don't think we were as effective that way as I wanted to be."

A number of issues came up in Ohio State’s loss to Duke, including some poor shooting from the team and a lack of trust in the bench from the coaching staff.

The Buckeyes’ shooting woes continued. After hitting on just 34 percent of its shots in Cameron Indoor Stadium, Ohio State only shot 38 percent from the field against Northern Kentucky. Sam Thompson was the only starter to shot over 50 percent (three of five from the field for 10 points) against the Norse. None of the other four starters shot over 33 percent from the field.

Ohio State’s leading scorer, Deshaun Thomas, only scored 14 points despite taking 14 shots. He talked about the Buckeyes’ shooting struggles, "We didn't come out putting it in the hole. But, you know, it's us staying together and preparing in practice and shooting the ball well."

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