I have paid a lot of attention to OSU basketball, and want Thad to get us an NCAA championship. But I really haven't cared too much this season, must just be because of that football national title.

Decent start for OSU

That knock back in was ridiculous.

Good game so far

Amir needs to toughen up on the defensive boards

Russells vision is just unreal.

Danger zone for OSU. Arizona starting to take control and open up a nice lead. Need to tighten up the D

Russell needs to get his shot going or they're toast.

Russell has had some good looks that just aren't falling

Russell is cold and York and McConnell are making everything. Not looking good

Russell, Johnson, and Hollis-Jefferson 4/32 combined. Not pretty on either side.

Arizona has better complementary players. That's the difference so far.

Dammit

Well, it was a good first half.

Arm wrestling is on ESPN. It's insane.

Offensive rebounds and leaving York open ended up killing them. Russell was stone cold unfortunately as well.

Arizona is just better top to bottom. It's not even close.

We were right there with them for most of the game, just a bad game to go cold for Russell. Eventually we couldn't overcome his poor shooting day

Automatik;1715429 wrote:Arizona is just better top to bottom. It's not even close.

Unfortunately this.

The Buckeyes have no one that can shoot and no bigs that are worth a fuck. They overachieved to get as far as they did.

Cleveland Buck;1715660 wrote:The Buckeyes have no one that can shoot and no bigs that are worth a fuck. They overachieved to get as far as they did.

Winning 1 game isn't anything to hang your hat on.

gut;1715719 wrote:Winning 1 game isn't anything to hang your hat on.

Only 32 teams in the country can say that. The Bucks are one of them.

sleeper;1715739 wrote:Only 32 teams in the country can say that. The Bucks are one of them.

'Top' 32...whoopee. Last season, lost in first round.

Not going in the right direction.

This is THE Ohio State University. Should be better.

BTW, best thing about losing to Arizona? NEVER have to watch Amir Williams and Shannon Scott play EVER again.

wkfan;1715741 wrote:'Top' 32...whoopee. Last season, lost in first round.

Not going in the right direction.

This is THE Ohio State University. Should be better.

I agree we haven't done well the last 2 years but before that was elite 8,final 4,sweet 16,sweet 16,first round loss, championship game. I have faith in Matta and I want him here as long as he wants to continue coaching.

FatHobbit;1715761 wrote:I agree we haven't done well the last 2 years but before that was elite 8,final 4,sweet 16,sweet 16,first round loss, championship game. I have faith in Matta and I want him here as long as he wants to continue coaching.

Yeah, and the difference between these two years and previous years was easy to determine, too: those 3-4 year players didn't turn out as well as previous ones did. In the past, you had things like ET develop into a guy who went #2 in the NBA draft, D. Thomas going from a ball-hogging liability as a freshman into a deadly 20-per-game shooter and David Lighty being a lock-down defender who could put up 10-15 a game on offense. None of whom started out as more than bench guys who got some degree of PT, but turned into the sort of guy you can count on for leadership and production.

Our seniors for this year really never got better than pure support. Sam and Scott had things they did well, but never got the sort of all-around game that, as fans, we were hoping/expecting based on potential. Trey gave the effort but just didn't have the athleticism/talent to be a big contributor on a high-level team. Amir...well, we've said a lot about him for the past couple years. There's a reason for that.

There's a fine line between being a "round of 64" or "round of 32" team and getting to the elite 8 or so. For this team, the seniors were that line. When your team is essentially all seniors and freshmen (with Loving being the only "other"), you need those seniors to do a lot, not just on the court, but as leaders and guys keeping the younger players on track. On the court, they were the same players they were last year; off the court, while I'm not privy to the "behind the scenes" stuff, I never really heard anything about how they were fiery leaders or tirelessly working to make others better like you get with some players. They'd say things about "we have to be better than that" and then the next game would roll around and Russell (skill) and Tate (hustle) would still be the only two guys doing good stuff with consistency.