March 11, 2005

CHICAGO - For an entire half of play they shut each other down. Ohio State's Terrance Dials and Wisconsin's Mike Wilkinson faced-off in one of the premier match ups of Friday's (March 11) quarterfinal game of the 2005 Big Ten Conference Men's Basketball Tournament between the Buckeyes and the Badgers.

Through the first half of play the two power forwards held each other in check with Dials only tallying two points and Wilkinson four. The second half began with each player back guarding the other until Dials picked up a foul a few minutes into the second stanza. Wilkinson was able to knock in a pair of field goals in the mean time. Dials returned to the court later and proceeded to add eight points in a little over six minutes of play. With six minutes remaining both players had almost identical stats as Dials had 10 points and six rebounds and Wilkinson had 12 and seven. Wisconsin held a seven point lead at that mark.

Dials would finish with 12 points and seven boards while Wilkinson would end the game with 12 points and eight boards along with three steals in Wisconsin's 60-49 win over Ohio State. While Wilkinson was matched-up with Dials for a majority of the time he proclaims the win and keeping Dials in check as a total team effort not a one-on-one match-up.

"I wanted to come in and make him work," Wilkinson said. "I know we couldn't let him get a lot of touches down in the post because once he gets it down there it is tough to stop him. I knew I had to make him work and it wasn't just me. It was a total team effort and something we worked very hard on."

During this season and including Ohio State's first round victory over Penn State on Thursday (March 10), Dials was the leader of the Buckeyes in almost every statistical category. On his way to joining the Ohio State 1,000 point club this season Dials tied his career high in points with 29 and field goals with 12 against Iowa on March 2nd. Overall this season Dials is averaging 16 points-per-game to lead the head coach Thad Matta's squad. In starting all 31 games this season the junior has played 156 minutes more than any other Buckeye on his way to averaging 32.7 minutes-per-game. The Youngstown, Ohio native added 7.9 rebounds-per-game and was named to the Big Ten All-Conference second team by both the coaches and the media.

"I thought Terrance was really effective down low tonight," Matt said. "It seemed that every time he got the ball down low it was knocked away from him."

Wilkinson was selected as unanimous member of the Big Ten All-Conference first team by the coaches and also received the honor from the Big Ten media members. The senior was one of only two Badgers to start every game this season for UW on his way to a team-high 31.6 minutes-per-game. The Blue Mounds, Wisconsin native is averaging 14.8 points-per-game, which ranks second on the Badgers behind Alando Tucker this season. The 6'8" forward is also the team leader in field goal percentage, shooting 52.5 percent during the 2004-05 campaign.

While Friday's loss marks the end of Ohio State's season, Dials still has a year of eligibility remaining. Wilkinson and the Badger's will move on to play Iowa in Saturday's second semifinal game at 3:05 p.m. central time at the United Center in Chicago.

Big Ten Men's Basketball

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