Facetiously, it is assumed, Ohio State coach Thad Matta advised a reporter last week to ask Northwestern coach Bill Carmody why he had played two of his starters every minute of every Big Ten game to that point.

Touché.

After four years of being scrutinized and second-guessed for a resistance to resting his starters and playing their backups, Matta might have changed his stripes — although the real proof might not come until the fourth-ranked Buckeyes have a close game again, which isn’t likely to be tonight against Penn State in Value City Arena.

With the halfway mark of its conference season arriving this weekend, though, Ohio State doesn’t have a player ranking among the top 10 in average minutes played in Big Ten games, and when was the last time that could be said?

What has changed?

Well, for one, David Lighty and Jon Diebler have graduated. They were two of Matta’s most trusted lieutenants in the time they spent in his program.

With them gone, and replaced in the starting lineup by sophomores Deshaun Thomas and Lenzelle Smith Jr., who had little or no big-game experience before this season, Matta was not as wedded to them as he had been Lighty and Diebler. That has led him to reward players who practice well with playing time.

“I’m gaining trust and faith in these guys, and they’ve deserved that,” Matta said. “Hopefully, we can continue to widen our scope of who we’re playing.”

No starter is averaging more than 32 minutes in Big Ten games; last season, all five starters averaged 31 or more.

Six reserves are averaging more than six minutes in Big Ten games; last season, two did.

“The rotation not only gives those guys early confidence that we’ll need as a team when we get to tournament time,” Smith said, “but it also provides rest for some of us who do play a lot of minutes, so next game we’re not burned out.”

Granted, some of Matta’s comfort with doling out minutes could stem from the big leads his team has taken. Ohio State leads NCAA Division I in scoring margin (22 points per game), and its five Big Ten victories have been by an average margin of 28.8 points.

But since several of his starters encountered early foul trouble in the first two conference games, Matta has begun substituting more in the first half, sometimes removing starters with one foul for a few minutes rather than having to bench them the rest of the half if they get a second.

Who he brings off the bench is “a game-by-game situation,” Matta said, “who’s playing well and what they’re bringing to the table.”

Two weeks ago, in a loss at Illinois, he used only one player off the bench in the second half, long-armed freshman Sam Thompson, because “we didn’t get real good production” from others in the first half, Matta said.

Being able to use more players throughout the game should benefit the Buckeyes in the second half of the season by keeping them fresher and better able to apply the defensive pressure that has been invaluable to their success so far. They rank third nationally in turnover percentage, forcing turnovers on nearly 27 percent of opponents’ possessions.

“I felt like if we had more depth, we could maybe keep our pressure and our intensity at a higher level as we went through the Big Ten season,” Matta said. “I think to this point they’ve done a pretty good job with that.”

bbaptist@dispatch.com