High Energy Carmen's Crew Runs Through Men of Mackey

Despite a slow first quarter, Ohio State’s alumni team, Carmen’s Crew, finally started to play like one of the best teams in the TBT Tournament. The Buckeye’s second-half offensive explosion carried them to an 80-69 win.

From the jump, you could see that Coach Jared Sullinger had the team’s energy much higher than in round one. William Bufford and David Lighty were very aggressive on defense and made Men of Mackey’s Kelsey Barlow’s day miserable.

Against Mid American Unity, the defense seemed very relaxed and relied on their high power offense to power them through. Sully knew his guys had to slow down Purdue’s shooters Robbie Hummel and Barlow, and they did just that. The Men of Mackey could never find a rhythm and were killed by Buckeye scoring barrages.

On the offensive side of things, Bufford was the star today leading the team with 19 points and seven rebounds. Another positive came from Jon Diebler as he seemed to figure out his outside stroke, going 3-6 from beyond the arc.

Despite receiving minimal minutes, Aaron Craft and Evan Ravenel looked phenomenal. Craft was pesky as always on the defensive side of things and looked a lot more confident than Shannon Scott at running the point. Ravenel did very well in the pick and roll and was finishing through contact at all his looks in the paint.

Also, you can’t finish a Carmen’s Crew recap without at least mentioning the great Jeff Gibbs. He dominated Robbie Hummel on the inside today. Hummel was flopping all over the place any time Gibbs tried to back him down in the paint.

Overall, today was a huge improvement for the Ohio State alumni. The longer this tournament runs on, the more time Carmen’s Crew has to rebuild their chemistry with one another.

Ohio State will be back in action on Tuesday at 9 PM, where they’ll take on the winner of Team Hines and The Money Team.