COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Ohio State coach Thad Matta believes his team has learned a lot from its worst games. “It’s a growing experience,” Matta said Monday during final preparations for his team’s Big Ten opener Tuesday at home against Iowa. “As I told our guys yesterday, ‘Hey, at this time last year we were sitting at 13-0 and we probably had some fool’s gold.’ (We had some) things that we didn’t know about ourselves that we had to learn the hard way.” That Buckeyes team barely kept its head above water in the Big Ten, going 10-8 while finishing fifth. It won its first two conference games – then dropped four in a row and were playing catch-up the rest of the season. Matta thinks things are much better now. “Hopefully, the two losses that we have right now will pay us dividends in crucial moments of games,” he said. The 20th-ranked Buckeyes (11-2) are 11-0 against an anemic home schedule and have looked miserable in losing their only two games to ranked opponents, then-No. 5 Louisville and No. 24 North Carolina. But the players say there’s an underlying feeling that despite beating up on the likes of UMass-Lowell, Sacred Heart, Campbell and Colgate so far, they’re capable of bigger things. “We know we can put a lot more points on the board and our (zone) defense we haven’t really, I guess, fully committed to it yet,” point guard Shannon Scott said. “We make a lot of mistakes in it still that we have to correct. When we start to playing to the best of our ability on offense and defense, we’re going to be a great team.” The Buckeyes host Iowa (9-4) in a rare Tuesday matinee to open the Big Ten season. Both teams are talented but have had lapses while blending in new and inexperienced players. …
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