Greg Oden led the Ohio State Buckeyes to a 78-57 victory over the Central Connecticut Blue Devils. The 16-seeded Devils attempted to make history by defeating the number one seeded Buckeyes, but fell short despite their persistent efforts. The Buckeyes will play Xavier on Saturday.

?When you play a team like Central Connecticut State, they are a team that is never going away,? said Thad Matta, the head coach of Ohio State. ?They have guys that can shoot. They made a couple of runs on us, I thought we answered those.?

The game started how most pictured it: Oden easily won the tip-off, but the first Ohio State possession came as a shock. Jemino Sobers, the 6-foot-5 Blue Devil assigned to guard the future NBA star, blocked Oden?s first shot attempt.

?I was surprised I got it. I thought he was going to dunk it, but he went to lay it in. And I jumped and realized I could get it,? said Sobers. ?I?ll remember it, alright. When he?s in the NBA I?ll tell my kids I blocked his shot.?

The thought of containing Oden dissipated quickly as Oden slammed down an offensive rebound. He finished the game going 6-for-10 from the field and 7-for-10 from the free throw line.

Tristan Blackwood missed his first two 3-pointers with little time left on the shot clock. He finished the game 4-for-1l on 3-point shooting, with a total of 12 points. Ohio State, however, got an early lead thanks to their 3-point shooting, coming out 14-3 with 15:15 left in the half. Jamar Butler of Ohio State finished the half with 3-of-4 and finished the game 5-of-6 from beyond the arch.

?I think I?ve really improved since the Big Ten tournament,? said Butler. ?I was ableto take a lot of shots in practice, and it paid off.?

Central Connecticut added a pair of 3-pointers, one from Joe Seymore and one from Javier Mojica, to bring the score to 19-9 with close to 11 minutes left in the half. Seymore finished the game with 12 points, all 3-pointers. Mojica totaled 19 points and 6 rebounds.

Central defenders swarmed Oden every time he was given the ball down low. The Blue Devils would even sandwich Oden when going for a rebound off a foul shot. Central held Oden to four points going into halftime.

?Yeah they [Central] were really physical,? said Oden. ?I knew with our size advantage that they?d have to push us around a little early on.?

Sobers, about seven inches shorter than Oden, was a defensive force himself and had two blocks with eight minutes left to play in the first half, a total of three blocks in the game. Oden, oddly enough, only had one block in the game, but accumulated seven rebounds. He finished with 10, earning himself a double-double.

The Blue Devils hardly trailed by more than 10 for most of the half, but with one minute left the game started to get out of hand at 34-17.

Daequan Cook led a fast break play that ended in a foul and a crowd pleaser?a Greg Oden off the backboard slam?even though it did not count. Rupp Arena was very much the house of the Ohio State Buckeyes. A block by Buckeye Othello Hunter, followed by a 3-pointer by Cook ended the half at 38-17. Cook finished the game with nine points.

Central took advantage of Oden being on the bench and fed Sobers the ball a few times adding six points in the first part of the second half. A Mojica steal and fast break conversion, along with a 3-pointer from Seymore brought the score to 57-41 with 10:22 left in the game.

Obie Nwadike committed his fourth foul on Oden with just over 10 minutes to play. Nwadike finished with five rebounds.

?Obie Nwadike is pound-for-pound the greatest rebounder in college basketball,? said Central Connecticut head coach Howie Dickenman. ?I?ll say it again. Obie Nwadike, at 6-foot-2 and a half, is pound-for-pound the best rebounder in college basketball.?

Ohio State extended the lead to 20 with nine minutes in the game after a 3-pointer by Ron Lewis. He was 3-for-6 from the arch, totaling 13 points in the game. With about six minutes left to play, Oden beat his defender and slammed the ball down, lifting himself off the floor. The basket put Ohio State in the lead 69-48.

Nwadike fouled out of the game with 4:35 remaining. The 6-foot-11 Ingo Beaudet entered the game for the first time, replacing Nwadike. ?I thought he would foul out of the ball game because he didn?t want to be out there at the end of the game without giving everything he had,? added Dickenman.

Oden left the game with less than three minutes remaining to the applause from Rupp Arena. The Buckeyes led 73-51 as he left the floor. An alley-oop from Mike Conley to Othello Hunter with 1:05 left in the game brought the score to 78-54. Seymore answered with a 3-pointer from the corner of the court. The game ended with the final score of 78-57.

?They [the Buckeyes] are a great team,? said Dickenman. ?They are probably the best team we?ve played since I have been at Central Connecticut State. We still, for much of the game, play them punch-for-punch. We got knocked down in this game, but we never got knocked out.?

Matta, who once coached for Xavier, will be facing his former team on Saturday. ?I know it will be a little bit different because I was there and coached some of those guys,? said Matta. ?I don?t think that will be that big of an issue.?