(Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
At 3:30 on the afternoon of November 9, 2005 Ohio State got David Lighty to sign a Letter Of Intent finishing off the schools greatest recruiting class ever. Highlighted by Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. along with Dequane Cook and Othello Hunter the class was deemed the “Thad Five” and Ohio State’s miracle.
They went on to National Championship, just like the “Fab Five” before them.
Of the five Lighty is the only one still on campus. He also remains the most under appreciated of the five.
He only scored five points in Ohio State’s 67-60 win over Georgetown to get them to National Championship game but he held Jeff Greene, fresh off a 22 point outburst against North Carolina, to only nine points.
But this past season he was given a medical red-shirt causing many fans to forget about Columbus basketball until their 2010 recruiting haul comes in.
But let’s not look past the present team. This year’s team has a great chance to hang around the top 25.
They went into Miami and beat the Hurricanes, beat Notre Dame and Butler in consecutive games and were 9-0 climbing up to 13 in the polls before their first loss. But the most crucial loss of the season came with 4:02 left in a game vs. Jacksonville.
Lighty was dominating the game but his team was only up by eight. He gets the ball and drives hard to the basket.
"One of the kids from the other team came up and under (Lighty) trying to draw a charge," O'Brien said. "Dave shifted his weight (to avoid the contact) and landed on the outside of his left foot."
After that they were never the same team.
Against Notre Dame he held Kyle McAlarney to six points, nine points off his average, missing all six of his threes and shot 3-11 everywhere else.
In the Buckeyes game against West Virginia after Lighty broke his foot ,Alex Ruoff, the man David most likely would have been sent out to stop, dropped 17 points leading West Virginia to a 76-48 win.
This happened time after time throughout the rest of the season as Evan Turner was forced to carry the load. Though if someone had to do it, then Turner is the man.
The sophomore led the Big Ten in points, 17 per game, and led his team in almost everything else. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, three point percentage, you name it he did it.
He constantly got to the basket with ease and was also the best point guard while playing the four much of the season.
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