Ohio State number: 12? 35? Try deep-six

By HUBERT MIZELL

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 28, 1999

Usually No. 12, Ohio State's Scoonie Penn had to swap jerseys when his got lost. Also out of the ordinary: Penn shot 3-of-13 and had 11 points in the Buckeye's loss. [Times photo: Jonathan Newton]

ST. PETERSBURG -- Scoonie Penn lost his shirt. Literally. Ohio State's basketball darlings were primping for a Saturday night NCAA semifinal date with Connecticut. Brushing hair. Lacing sneakers. Penn, a wondrous 5-foot-10 guard, could not find his No. 12 uniform. There was a semi-panic. It had been misplaced. Stolen. Whatever.

Scoonie Penn lost his shirt. Figuratively. Forced to play the biggest game of his life wearing an unfamiliar No. 35, the young man from the Massachusetts witchcraft capital (Salem) would be bedeviled into making a measly three baskets. Shooting a sickly 23 percent.

Buckeyes couldn't overcome.

"Honestly," Scoonie said after a 64-58 loss, "being without my No. 12 had no significant bearing." There he goes, that No. 35 tainting a good story.

UConn's plan for hoops war is always fierce yet uncomplicated: Work at cutting off the head of the baddest enemy snake, knowing it can diminish poisons. Go after the leader. Zero in on the hero. Lessen the threats. When done truly effectively, it encourages competitive death.

Ricky Moore, a feisty Georgian among Connecticut Yankees, was the defensive hit man assigned to take out Penn. "Scoonie is terrific and will soon make lots of money playing basketball," Jim Calhoun said. But, regarding Moore, whom he termed "my best defensive player ever," the fast-talking UConn coach would say, "Ricky cut the head of the dragon off."

Even with Penn under Moore's strangling siege, the Buckeyes managed to stay close. "We got nice leads of 8 and 10 points," Calhoun said, "but then we would relax, especially in the first half, allowing Ohio State to do some catching up."

Well into the second half, UConn was still daring fate. Despite a ghastly 5-for-23 stretch of Buckeyes' shooting inaccuracies for 131/2 minutes, they trailed just 55-48. Soon, as the Huskies again scrambled to escape a dangerous slumber, the UConn edge withered to 57-54.

Perhaps, with a legitimate chance of an OSU rescue, the Bucks had to be figuring ... maybe now, Scoonie can get freed up from Moore's shackles. Pop a couple of three-point missiles.

Michael Redd has lethal propensities. Maybe there also could be a spurt of offensive help from Ken Johnson, a 6-11 insider who was uncharacteristically strong a week earlier against St. John's in the South Region.

UConn's biggest fellow, 6-11 Jake Voskuhl, stayed in constant foul trouble. Playing just eight minutes in the first half. Sitting a bit in the second before being disqualified. Without the huskiest Husky in the middle, the possibilities for Johnson appeared to be there.

He never blossomed.

After scoring OSU's first two buckets of the game, the slender junior from Detroit went 30 minutes before making another. Johnson lost more than his shirt. Shorter, quicker UConn defenders turned the tallest Buckeye into a humbled mound of melted wax.

Like the No. 12 of Penn, the Buckeyes were gone. Victims perhaps of some sort of Peter Principle in their most productive NCAA Tournament. Having come so far from 8-22 a year ago, but then running terribly, lethally low on petrol after a stunning race all the way to the Final Four.

Saturday night's demons never quit biting Ohio State. Moore stayed on Scoonie like warm au gratin on cold potatoes. With their fearsome little viper having been beheaded, a far heavier load was demanded from Buckeyes other than Penn.

"Defense is mostly hard work," said Moore, a 6-2 senior from the Georgia golfing capital of Augusta. "My first aim against Scoonie was to cut off his opportunities to drive for the basket. After that, I wanted to make him take the toughest possible shots."

Ricky was a double-dip hit.

So it's UConn in Monday's mightiest test of all. Calhoun, deep into a remarkable coaching career, finally made his first Final Four. He was matched against Ohio State's Jim O'Brien, a coach against whom Calhoun had a lifetime record of 18-0.

Now he's 19-0.

"We'll stay up all night, looking at videotapes and checking all our data," the Huskies' coach said late Saturday. "How will we go about speedy preparation to play the national championship game? Very happily."