I know the Hoosiers haven’t played the Badgers or Spartans yet this season, but there’s been no other team that’s outclassed them like the Buckeyes this year.

OSU is just a well-oiled, highly-efficient machine. Tonight’s win was its eighth-straight conference victory; in their previous seven wins, the Buckeyes were shooting an insane 58 percent on 2’s. Their effective field-goal percentage is 56.7 percent — good for third in the nation.

Watching them tonight, it’s easy to see why their offense is so efficient: they take a ton of high-percentage shots around the rim, and just about everybody outside of Jon Diebler, Dallas Lauderdale and Kyle Madsen can penetrate to the bucket for an easy two. They scored 40 of their 69 points in the paint tonight. The Buckeyes just have so much length and athleticism; it’s difficult to matchup against them because of it.

And that size and athleticism also helps them create easy buckets: steal and blocks — they had a healthy nine swats tonight — lead to fast breaks, which leads to easy 2’s. It certainly helped their cause that IU turned the ball over 14 times, which lead to 18 points.

What’s a little maddening on IU’s end is that they executed the gameplan in the first half: the Buckeyes don’t go that deep, so Tom Crean wanted to get into their bench. And when Evan Turner and P.J. Hill left with foul trouble, Ohio State went deeper into its bench than usual. Problem was, that bench outclassed the Hoosiers, too. By the end of the night, the Buckeyes posted 15 bench points, to the Hoosiers’ paltry three. And Madsen, off the bench, ended up with a career-high 11 points.

Yet, the Buckeyes weren’t really firing on all cylinders in that first half; they only shot 42.4 percent from the floor. Obviously, that’s still pretty good, but not quite up to their standards.

Credit IU for bouncing back after falling down 9-0, and getting it back to 18-17. But once there, the wheels came off for good, and they weren’t able to stick with the Buckeyes, who closed out the half on a 16-3 run the last 7:45 of the half, as IU didn’t score the last 6:09 of the frame. Against a team that’s as offensively-dominant as the Buckeyes, you just can’t go on such a scoring drought and expect to remain in the game.

And once the Buckeyes starting scoring better in the second half — 56.5 percent from the floor — the lights had officially gone out.

In these last two losses, IU has looked particularly lost in the half-court. Thier spacing is wrong at times; there’s a lot of hanging out around the perimeter until the last seconds of the shot clock start to tick. Watching how OSU worked in the half-court, it stuck out even more this evening.

With games looming against Wisconsin and Michigan State next, the Hoosiers better figure it out, or it’s only going to get worse.

Fast forward the calendar five weeks and the rematch was the same old story.

Too much Will Buford, Dallas Lauderdale and Evan Turner. No offensive cohesion. And not nearly the defensive intensity needed to be competitive.

The result: A fifth straight loss for Indiana – 69-52 – dropping the Hoosiers to 9-14 overall and 3-8 in the Big Ten.

“It was pathetic in a lot of ways,” Tom Crean told Don Fisher on the postgame radio show. “It was pathetic defensively. It’s inexcusable, but I don’t have a lot of avenues to go right now in the sense of making different decisions. But we will and we’ll be able to correct it and fix it as we move along.”

Through the first 12-plus minutes, Indiana looked like it might make a game of it. With Turner on the bench with two fouls, the Hoosiers were within one at 18-17.

Ohio State responded with a 16-3 run the last 7:48 of the half to grab a 34-20 halftime lead. And the Hoosiers never got within 12 the rest of the way.

“The margin for error against teams like that are so poor for us, but we don’t have any chance when we don’t play harder than that,” Crean said.

Buford finished with a game-high 21 points, Lauderdale added 14 points and eight rebounds and Turner, the front runner for Big Ten Player of the Year, had 10 points, seven rebounds and six assists in 21 minutes.

It was the eighth straight Big Ten win for Ohio State, moving the Buckeyes into a tie for first place.

Indiana, which shot just 37 percent from the field, got 15 points and seven rebounds from Christian Watford and 13 points from Jordan Hulls.

+ Box score

Do you know what we learned tonight? Because I’ll tell you what we learned tonight. This Hoosiers team is trending as such: good performances buttressed by bad ones. Really, really bad ones.

Where one could take pride in games like IU’s victory over Michigan, or Pittsburgh or even their work against Kentucky in a loss, they’ve underachieved in Puerto Rico, looked woeful at home in a loss to Loyola (Md.) and looked equally bad against Ohio State in Columbus this evening.

We wanted to look to the Michigan game as a sign this team has turned the corner, that they were going to be OK without Mo Creek. But they are young. Young teams will do that to you. They will emblazon your heart one moment with the promise of better things on the horizon, only to regress to a middle-school turnover fest the next.

If you watched the game this evening — IU’s first real road test of the season in a stadium that wasn’t even full and was pretty lifeless — you know what happened here. Turnovers were the story. Unforced, dribbled-off-the-leg turnovers. Fourteen in the first half, coupled with the length and athleticism of Ohio State’s man defense that left IU stagnant on the offensive end, and there was just no turning back. Christian Watford had six of those 14 turnovers in the first half. (IU finished with 24 for the game, by the way.) And where Devan Dumes came in and saved the day against Michigan last week, he instead air-balled a three upon his arrival.

Ohio State hit 5-of-10 threes and grabbed 12 points off all those turnovers in the first half, while IU ended it with their lowest point total of the season heading into the locker room (20).

Up 18 to start the second half, Ohio State got out in transition for a couple buckets early, and the lead eventually ballooned all the way to 32. Evan Turner was not needed this evening, that’s for sure.

IU just had no answers tonight. The road is always a tough journey in the Big Ten. Add in a young, inexperienced team to the mix, and it becomes that much harder.

THE GOOD: VJ3, FREE THROWS, TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY.

Can’t say enough about Verdell Jones. The kid brought it for 20 points against Michigan last week, and then topped it tonight, pouring in 22 points on 7-of-16 shooting, and 7-of-8 from the charity stripe. IU was an impressive 14-of-17 from the line for 82.4 percent tonight as well.

You hate to see IU play like this, because you know they’re capable of so much more. But this team has proven so far that its a wildly inconsistent performer. Until they string solid performances on top of each other and don’t go into a dark regression again, it’s hard to gauge which IU team is going to show up on any given night.

After missing six games in which the Buckeyes (11-4, 1-2 Big Ten) went 3-3, Turner returned Wednesday night with an impressive stat line in just 20 minutes: eight points, five assists and four rebounds.

But more importantly for coach Thad Matta, Ohio State picked up its first conference win, a 79-54 romp over Indiana at Value City Arena.

“We won a game,” Matta said. “I thought we had some decent intensity on both ends of the floor to start the game. I think there’s a lot of challenges. Getting him (Turner) back is huge for us. We’ve got a long way to go.”

If, as Matta said, the Buckeyes have a long way to go, Indiana may have even a longer road ahead.

The Hoosiers (7-7, 1-1) committed more turnovers (24) than they had made field goals (18). They shot just 34 percent from the field. And in the first 15:36 of the contest, they scored only eight points.

“We played like a team that was in its first road game and that’s disappointing,” Indiana coach Tom Crean said. “We certainly have the capabilities of being better than that.”

By the time Indiana reached double figures in scoring, Ohio State had built a comfortable 20-point lead. And playing in their first true road game of the season, the Hoosiers were unable to get closer than 17 the rest of the way.

Besides the efficient production from one of the primary contenders for Big Ten player of year in Turner, the Buckeyes got solid production from Jon Diebler (21 points) and William Buford (16 points). Diebler hit 5-of-8 3-point attempts and Buford pulled down six rebounds.

“It was definitely fun,” Turner said of his return. “I just had a lot of fun out there. I’m glad we won big. It was a great team win. I’m just real fortunate.”

For Indiana, Verdell Jones led the way offensively with 22 points. Christian Watford also scored in double figures with 11 points and Jeremiah Rivers added four points, eight rebounds and five assists.

Up next: Home vs Illinois on Saturday, January 9 at 8:00 ET on the Big Ten Network.

Crean’s postgame comments: Listen to the Indiana coach in the embedded media player below. Audio is courtesy of Dustin Dopirak of The Herald-Times.

And then you look at this:

As Tom Crean said earlier this week, Evan Turner or no Evan Turner, this team can ball. They shoot it well, as they’re fifth in the country in eFG percentage. They do a good job taking care of the ball and they’re a solid defensive rebounding team. Their adjusted defense is in the top 50 in the country, and their adjusted offense is 26th.

However, Ohio State is struggling on the offensive boards, which is a good thing for the Hoosiers, as they’re currently only 222nd in the country on the defensive boards.

If there’s an area IU can exploit this evening, it’s getting to the line. IU is one of the best teams in the country — 39th — at finding their way to the charity stripe, while Ohio State’s opponents this season are getting to the line a lot as well, as their opponents FTR is 25th in the country. But as is often the case with the Hoosiers, it’s not about getting to the line; it’s about getting to the line and converting.

With the way Ohio State has come out the gate so far this Big Ten season, it’s easy to point to this as a potential game the Hoosiers could steal on the road this season. But don’t let their conference record deceive you: Ohio State is a good team.

All stats from Kenpom.com.

I’ve been told that’s my trademark phrase, and being both Southern and incredibly predictable, it makes sense to break it out to introduce myself.

I’m Zach Osterman, the newest contributor here at Inside the Hall. As IU basketball coverage goes, I haven’t been away long — I covered last season for the Indiana Daily Student and have spent the early part of this season working with the good folks at Bleacher Report.

So when Eamonn’s departure for ESPN created an opening, I asked (and begged and pleaded) with Alex and Ryan to give me a look.

Now, I make no claim to being able to fill the impressive void left by Mr. Brennan. I’m just not that good, and I certainly do not want to disappoint you. I only promise to work hard, avoid (poor) attempts at being clever and never again begin a post with “Hey folks.”

But enough about me, let’s talk about Evan Turner.

Yes, that Evan Turner, the one that does just about everything for Ohio State, or did, before he broke his back. Bummer, dude.

Turner was expected to miss significant time — a layoff of as much as eight weeks was mentioned after the Dec. 5 injury — but now the Columbus Dispatch says Turner might be available when Indiana comes to town Wednesday night. According to the report from Bob Baptist, how Turner fares/fared in a final practice Tuesday will determine his status.

Playing Turner would be an interesting decision, even if he makes it through Tuesday with flying colors. There are many factors to consider.

Foremost, it’s hard for a player to reacquaint himself with his team’s flow after a long layoff, and its often just as hard to regain the confidence to play full speed with the injury still in the back of his mind, even if the pain is gone.

And would Thad Matta want to risk Turner against a Hoosier team that, on paper anyway, should be comfortably disposed of at home? And assuming things are tight late in the game, does bringing Turner off the bench — completely cold — late in the game make sense?

It would surprise me to see Turner leave the bench Wednesday night, unless Ohio State has been playing coy on the severity of his injury all along, which begs its own questions.

For his part, Tom Crean says Ohio State is good, Turner or no, and the Hoosiers have been preparing as though the All-Big Ten winger will play. Thoughts?