With a 63-54 victory against Michigan State on Saturday night and barring an upset or a major brain freeze, the only thing standing between Ohio State and a Number One Seed is Wisconsin on February 25 in Columbus. Led by Indiana reared freshmen Mike Conley and man-child Greg Oden, the Buckeyes are loaded with scorers, they play hard and, if they apply themselves, they can defend. At this point in the season, there’s not a team in country they couldn’t play and beat.
The Weight
Although it’s still early February, a run through the Bracket would restore some much needed respect to the Big Ten. Notwithstanding its early loss to Wisconsin in Madison, the required last second heroics of Ron Lewis against Tennessee in Value City Arena or losses to Florida and North Carolina, it’s apparent the Buckeyes are far and away the most talented team in the Big Ten. However, with Ohio State’s talent comes the burden of fulfilling it and that burden resides near the rarely used seat cushion of coach Thad Matta.
Dumb Shots and Wins
Before anointing Ohio State this year’s savior of the Big Ten, let me get something out of the way. There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance and there’s a fine line between good shots and dumb shots. Thusfar, Ohio State’s play smack of utter arrogance, demonstrated by a consistently inconsistent and half-hearted defensive effort and lots of bad shots. Their hubris tells them they’re talented and they can take any shot without consequence; so far, they’ve escaped consequence. However, if the Buckeyes are going to fulfill expectations, Matta needs to get them some discipline and focus. But based on years past, Matta will encouraged the Buckeyes to persist with their three pointers too early in the shot clock from start to finish. This past week Ohio State let an inferior but well-coached Spartans back into both games with poor clock management and they’re lucky to have won one of them.
What makes Ohio State’s offense all the more disconcerting is its failure to better utilize Greg Oden. While Ohio State remains perilously thin up front, Oden should be a consistent offensive force. While some have surmised that Oden isn’t aggressive, on the contrary, there is no indication Matta wants to run the offense through the post. Possessions repeatedly pass with Oden failing to touch the ball. On the sidelines, Matta resembles a high school cheerleader, incessantly urging his team to keep shooting. Despite possessing a once in a generation Al McGuire aircraft carrier in Oden, it’s three pointers that Matta wants and that’s what he gets.
The Honor of the Conference
Still, despite their warts, the Buckeyes are the Conference’s best hope this year. Although I cringe watching their inability to manage the clock, although I squirm watching them take two seconds to find a 25 footer out of a timeout, although I choke on my pretzel watching Assistant Coach John Groce call plays with ridiculous cardboard signs, and while I can question the logic of Matta’s priorities, I can’t deny the team’s innate ability.
And it’s that talent that should give Ohio State the firepower to hold its own against the premier teams of the ACC, Pac-10, Big 12 and SEC. I’ve never seen a better Ohio State point guard than Mike Conley, and that includes, Kelvin Ransey, Scoonie Penn, Mark Baker, and even Curtis Wilson. Daequan Cook looks like he just strolled in from the Trailblazers’ shoot around; he emanates the cocky confidence of someone too good to be in the same room as the rest of us.  And yes, in case you haven’t noticed, Oden is a huge man, and he is indeed much much better than Granville Waiters, Keith Wesson and Bill Robinson combined.
Where’s Bo
No intention to overlook Wisconsin but for whatever irrational reason, unlike Thad, the consistent wins accumulated by Bo Ryan haven’t yet captured the imagination of shallow basketball observers outside Dane County. I doubt Ryan gives a hoot. He’s assembled a team reflective of the qualities of great Big Ten basketball: toughness, resiliency, precision, and heart. They’re the only team in the county to beat two top five teams, Pitt and Ohio State. Wisconsin is deep, experienced, well-coached, and they have an All-American in Alando Tucker. If they make a run deep into March, and barring a mental letdown, they should, the Big Ten will have two teams in the Final Four. Before the start of the season, Hoopraker foresaw big things for Bo’s Badgers, click here.
Bringing it Together
For most Big Ten teams this year, it takes an extraordinary effort to beat Ohio State. If Michigan is to turn around their moribund season Tuesday night, they’ll need to bring their A+ game (plus some extra credit) to Columbus. There’s no question, the Conference needs Ohio State to excel. If Ohio State develops as they should and success happens in March, the only teams holding the Big Ten back from an era of true dominance are the inexplicably mediocre programs in Ann Arbor and Bloomington.
For all Ohio State’s potential, it’s now incumbent upon to Matta to put it together and extract results when their games matter most. In the NCAA Tournament, Matta will be measured and tested by great teams and great coaches. If he succeeds, the future has never looked more promising for Buckeye fans. If he fails, inexperience and lack of talent will not be an excuse.
I saw part of the OSU-MSU “game” and even though MSU was quite inept (except for Neitzel) OSU didn’t seem to have the offensive toughness
nor lock down defense that I’ve seen Wisconsin show. UW’s loss at Indiana was due to a “hot” 7 out of 9 shooting by Indiana guard Ratliff off the bench-he was guarded and he didn’t have easy shots so it was a special night for him. He came back to earth at Indiana’s Iowa loss the next game.
So it should be a good UW-OSU game at OSU. I would guess it will come down to OSU trying to limit Tucker inside, UW stopping Oden, guarding OSU guards well and working inside for shots/fouls. We will see.
Left by gunner on February 7th, 2007