COLUMBUS, Ohio — Defense and Daequan Cook were a pretty good tandem for No. 5 Ohio State.

The Buckeyes forced 26 turnovers and freshman sub Cook scored 22 points in a 74-45 victory over Eastern Kentucky on Friday night.

"My teammates got me some wide-open shots and I knocked 'em down," said Cook, who hit his first seven shots for the Buckeyes (4-0).

Over the first 7Z\x minutes, Eastern Kentucky (2-1) scored 15 points while hitting seven of its eight shots from the field with only one turnover. The Colonels then scored two points over the next 9 minutes, making one of seven shots with 10 turnovers.

"Our team came out and executed very well to start both halves," Eastern Kentucky coach Jeff Neubauer said. "It's once we got into the flow that we got a little bit rattled. They did apply more pressure as the game went on and that created quite a few more turnovers."

The Colonels averaged 11 turnovers in their first two wins.

"We knew coming into tonight's game that we wanted to dictate the tempo," Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. "For the most part we did a good job of playing sound defense."

Cook scored 12 points in his first 7 minutes then added five more in a 20-2 run that gave Ohio State a 35-17 lead. The Buckeyes made 17 of 24 shots from the field in the first half, including 5 of 10 from behind the arc.

No. 7 LSU 96, Nicholls St. 42At Baton Rouge, La., Darnell Lazare scored 16 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for LSU (1-0).Glen Davis and Garrett Temple each had 16 points for the Tigers (1-0). Davis also had eight rebounds and four assists.Nicholls State's Adonis Gray, who had averaged 21.5 points in the first four games, was held to 10 points. The Colonels (0-5) had no other player with more than seven.

No. 10 Alabama 71, Middle Tennessee 62At Charlotte Amalie, U.S. Virgin Islands, Ronald Steele had 20 points and four assists to lead Alabama (2-0) in the opening round of the Paradise Jam.Tim Blue scored 13 points and grabbed six rebounds for Middle Tennessee (1-2).

No. 12 Texas A&M 94, Lamar 60Joseph Jones scored 19 points and Texas A&M dominated Lamar in the inaugural Shelby Metcalf Classic.Josh Carter had 14 points and Dominique Kirk and Antanas Kavaliauskas added 12 each for Texas A&M (2-0), which jumped out to a 30-5 lead.James Davis scored 14 points for visiting Lamar (1-1).

No. 19 Texas 77, St. John's 76At New York, Kevin Durant had 29 points and fellow freshman D.J. Augustin added 17 to lead Texas (3-1) to the win in the third-place game of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic.Avery Patterson had 22 points for St. John's (2-2).

No. 21 Connecticut 88 Central Arkansas 59At Hartford, Conn., Jerome Dyson scored 20 points, powering Connecticut (2-0) to the win in the opening round of the Hispanic College Fund Classic.Jeff Adrien had 14 points and 11 rebounds for Connecticut.Frederick Campbell led the Bears (1-2) with 15 points.

No. 22 Kentucky 79, Mississippi Valley State 56Ramel Bradley had a career-high 21 points and Kentucky (2-0) started with a 15-0 run en route to defeating visiting Mississippi Valley State (0-3) in Tubby Smith's 500th game.