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LGHL No. 10 Ohio State heads into Big Ten Women’s Soccer Tournament as the eighth seed
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No. 10 Ohio State heads into Big Ten Women’s Soccer Tournament as the eighth seed
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Ohio State Athletics
Lori Walker-Hock’s Buckeyes look for their fourth all-time B1G Tournament title.
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College sports can be confusing at times. For example, the Ohio State women’s soccer team enters the postseason as the No. 10 team in the country... however, they are the eighth-seed team in the Big Ten Tournament. The top six teams all have a bye into the second round, so teams No. 7 through 10 have to play an extra game in order to win the conference crown.
Ohio State finished in a tie for seventh in the league with the Minnesota Golden Gophers after losing three of their last five games, all by one goal. Thanks to a 3-2 win at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium earlier in October, the Gophers — who are hosting the tournament — got the benefit of the tiebreaker.
So, despite the Buckeyes being the second-highest-ranked B1G team in the national polls, they will have “No. 8” next to their name for the next two weeks as they hope to right their ship and win their fourth tournament title.
To make things even more confusing, according to the NCAA’s RPI, which factors in strength of schedule, Ohio State is No. 13 nationally. This makes them the fourth-best ranking for a Big Ten school, behind No. 5 USC, No. 9 Penn State, and No. 10 Iowa. However, in the B1G Tournament, USC is No. 1 and Iowa is No. 3 — which makes sense given their RPI ranks — however, the Nittany Lions are entering the postseason as the No. 10 seed, two spots below the Buckeyes.
So, perhaps the moral of this story is that rankings don’t tell you nearly the complete story about a team’s season, and they all become irrelevant in the postseason anyway as it becomes survive and advance for everyone.
The Buckeyes enter the postseason 11-4-3 overall and 6-3-2 against Big Ten competition, however, none of those wins or losses came against the Wisconsin Badges, who will be OSU’s first-round opponent on Thursday, Oct. 31 at 4:30 p.m. ET. The Badgers are 9-4-4 overall and 5-3-3 in the league.
Ohio State has the advantage in the all-time series against Wisconsin with a record of 13-11-8, but it is even more impressive in the B1G Tournament where OSU is 3-0 against the Badgers; granted two of those wins came before many of the players were even born (1998 and 2002), but they still count.
Unlike the Buckeyes who stumbled a bit down the stretch, Wisconsin won four of its last five matches, allowing on a single goal in those four Ws.
Coming into the postseason, the Buckeyes are led by senior forward Kailyn Dudukovich who scored her 41st career goal in the regular season finale against No. 15 Penn State, passing Tiffany Cameron to become the program’s leading goal scorer. The goal was her 16th of the season to go along with an assist, giving her a team-leading 33 points on the season for head coach Lori Walker-Hock.
The last time that these two teams met, Dudukovich scored a second-half game-winner in Madison on Oct. 15, 2023. She was assisted by Amanda Schlueter who leads the Buckeyes and the Big Ten with 10 assists this season. Schlueter has also contributed eight goals this fall, bringing her to 26 points on the campaign.
Paula Wilkins’ Badgers are led by grad student Aryssa Mahrt who has nine goals and a pair of assists to give her 20 points on the season. The only other Wisconsin player with double-digit points is senior midfielder Ashley Martinez who has done most of her damage via her seven assists that go along with her pair of goals.
You can watch first and second-round games on BTN+ with the Big Ten Network picking up coverage on Thursday, Nov. 7 with the semifinals at 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET. The Big Ten Championship Game will take place on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 12 noon ET.
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Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Ohio State Athletics
Lori Walker-Hock’s Buckeyes look for their fourth all-time B1G Tournament title.
College sports can be confusing at times. For example, the Ohio State women’s soccer team enters the postseason as the No. 10 team in the country... however, they are the eighth-seed team in the Big Ten Tournament. The top six teams all have a bye into the second round, so teams No. 7 through 10 have to play an extra game in order to win the conference crown.
Ohio State finished in a tie for seventh in the league with the Minnesota Golden Gophers after losing three of their last five games, all by one goal. Thanks to a 3-2 win at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium earlier in October, the Gophers — who are hosting the tournament — got the benefit of the tiebreaker.
So, despite the Buckeyes being the second-highest-ranked B1G team in the national polls, they will have “No. 8” next to their name for the next two weeks as they hope to right their ship and win their fourth tournament title.
To make things even more confusing, according to the NCAA’s RPI, which factors in strength of schedule, Ohio State is No. 13 nationally. This makes them the fourth-best ranking for a Big Ten school, behind No. 5 USC, No. 9 Penn State, and No. 10 Iowa. However, in the B1G Tournament, USC is No. 1 and Iowa is No. 3 — which makes sense given their RPI ranks — however, the Nittany Lions are entering the postseason as the No. 10 seed, two spots below the Buckeyes.
So, perhaps the moral of this story is that rankings don’t tell you nearly the complete story about a team’s season, and they all become irrelevant in the postseason anyway as it becomes survive and advance for everyone.
The Buckeyes enter the postseason 11-4-3 overall and 6-3-2 against Big Ten competition, however, none of those wins or losses came against the Wisconsin Badges, who will be OSU’s first-round opponent on Thursday, Oct. 31 at 4:30 p.m. ET. The Badgers are 9-4-4 overall and 5-3-3 in the league.
Ohio State has the advantage in the all-time series against Wisconsin with a record of 13-11-8, but it is even more impressive in the B1G Tournament where OSU is 3-0 against the Badgers; granted two of those wins came before many of the players were even born (1998 and 2002), but they still count.
Unlike the Buckeyes who stumbled a bit down the stretch, Wisconsin won four of its last five matches, allowing on a single goal in those four Ws.
Coming into the postseason, the Buckeyes are led by senior forward Kailyn Dudukovich who scored her 41st career goal in the regular season finale against No. 15 Penn State, passing Tiffany Cameron to become the program’s leading goal scorer. The goal was her 16th of the season to go along with an assist, giving her a team-leading 33 points on the season for head coach Lori Walker-Hock.
The last time that these two teams met, Dudukovich scored a second-half game-winner in Madison on Oct. 15, 2023. She was assisted by Amanda Schlueter who leads the Buckeyes and the Big Ten with 10 assists this season. Schlueter has also contributed eight goals this fall, bringing her to 26 points on the campaign.
Paula Wilkins’ Badgers are led by grad student Aryssa Mahrt who has nine goals and a pair of assists to give her 20 points on the season. The only other Wisconsin player with double-digit points is senior midfielder Ashley Martinez who has done most of her damage via her seven assists that go along with her pair of goals.
You can watch first and second-round games on BTN+ with the Big Ten Network picking up coverage on Thursday, Nov. 7 with the semifinals at 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET. The Big Ten Championship Game will take place on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 12 noon ET.
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Google sued for... $20 DECILLION DOLLARS !
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Russian Court Wants Google to Cough Up $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
The court imposed the fine, which is doubling every week, following lawsuits brought by Russian TV channels blocked from YouTube.
gizmodo.com
LGHL Is Ohio State’s No. 1 weapon against Penn State actually James Franklin?
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Is Ohio State’s No. 1 weapon against Penn State actually James Franklin?
Jami Jurich via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Kyle Robertson/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
Until the Nittany Lions’ head coach proves otherwise, his abysmal track record against the Buckeyes will speak for itself.
Without rehashing the much-discussed issues against Nebraska, the Buckeyes need to take the field in Happy Valley looking like an entirely different team.
Offensive line issues abounded, hindering the Buckeyes’ powerful run game. Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson just didn’t have the room they needed to do their jobs. The usually consistent Will Howard was uncharacteristically sloppy.
The defense, while much improved over their performance against Oregon, got bogged down by unnecessary penalties (Davison Igbinosun, I’m talking to you. Knock it off with the pass interference). Even special teams got in on the action, with Jayden Fielding missing a 42-yard field goal.
Succinctly, the Buckeyes looked beatable, and Penn State typically plays us close, so I’m not expecting a huge margin of error.
Still, if I had to pinpoint which individual would play the most important role in beating Penn State, it’s none of the guys I mentioned above. The Buckeyes’ biggest asset isn’t their quarterback or any one of their star wide receivers or running backs. If they have an Achilles heel, there’s a good chance it will be canceled out on the other side of the field.
Because their biggest asset isn’t a Buckeye at all. It’s Nittany Lions’ head coach James Franklin.
Before the Penn State fans try to burn me at the stake for this, hear me out: When a program reaches the caliber of Penn State or Ohio State, coaches are judged as much by their success in high-stakes games as they are by their overall record.
I hold Ryan Day to this same standard. In fact, I sent a text today saying that if Ohio State can’t get the job done against Penn State, it might be time to re-evaluate his future with the Buckeyes. Ultimately, the number of Ws in the win column doesn’t matter if you can’t finish the job when it counts—especially at schools like Ohio State or Penn State where the fans have come to expect excellence.
With an overall record of 95-39 at Penn State, on paper, Franklin is exceptional.
But “on paper” doesn’t tell us the full story—because Franklin has historically struggled against ranked opponents, particularly top-10 opponents, and especially Ohio State. No matter how good the Nittany Lions look coming into the game against the Buckeyes, Franklin always seems to get in his own way.
His program always seems to be on the cusp of greatness. But what does Franklin have to show for it? A woeful 1-9 record — with seven consecutive losses — against the Buckeyes,
And to be fair, beating ranked teams is hard. While Day himself has a better record than Franklin against top 10 teams, OSU has lost three consecutive games to ranked opponents (last year’s loss to Michigan, their loss to Missouri in last season’s Cotton Bowl, and their one-point loss on the road to Oregon just a few weeks ago).
But there is something about Ohio State in particular that seems to be a thorn in Franklin’s side, even when we’re talking about a Penn State team that is really good.
They enter Saturday’s matchup as the No. 3 team in the country, with a 7-0 record, while the Buckeyes sit at No. 4 following the aforementioned loss to the Ducks. But who have the Nittany Lions played? Illinois? Not to mention, they struggled against a dud of a USC team (I know, I know: OSU vs. Nebraska. Pot, meet kettle).
It was just last year that Penn State came into the game against the Buckeyes with a 6-0 record and got a little too big for their breeches against another imperfect Ohio State team. So until Franklin can actually deliver on his end, you won’t exactly find me shaking in my boots.
Star quarterback Drew Allar (who is questionable for this weekend due to injury) went just 18-of-42. PSU converted just one of 16 third downs. The offense didn’t produce the way it needed to, and the defense did the football equivalent of yelling “Hey guys! Could you stop, please?” to OSU’s offense. They got outplayed by a Buckeye team that wasn’t even firing on all cylinders.
In large part, the responsibility for that falls on Franklin. His team couldn’t execute the small plays and didn’t deliver on the big ones. Despite it being a one-score game, Penn State couldn’t find the end zone until the fourth quarter.
Baffling play calls abounded. I’m talking “We’re down in the fourth quarter and the momentum gods have given us a gift. We’ve recovered a fumble from Ohio State, and now we get the ball on our own 48-yard-line. What excellent field position! You know what we should do? A TRICK PLAY FOR FUNSIES!”-bad. That play, for the record, resulted in a loss of yards, and I’m still scratching my head about it.
After the loss, Franklin didn’t really have answers for Penn State’s performance. And that’s part of his problem, in my opinion. You can’t win big games if you can’t learn from the losses. Losses are an opportunity to adjust, yet Franklin’s teams repeat the same mistakes year after year.
Now, against an Ohio State squad that looked less and less fearsome by the snap last weekend, Franklin has a chance to prove something has changed. If he can pull it off, I’ll deserve to eat crow for this column.
But until Franklin proves otherwise, I’m expecting more of the same from him: Poor execution of the fundamentals, questionable clock management, and mind-boggling play calls, with no answers for any of it.
So yes, Ohio State made mistakes against Oregon and again last weekend against Nebraska. Yes, they have to go on the road, and Happy Valley is a tough place to play. Yes, the Nittany Lions are a very good football team. But as long as James Franklin is calling the shots for Penn State, I’m putting my money on the Buckeyes.
Continue reading...
Jami Jurich via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Kyle Robertson/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
Until the Nittany Lions’ head coach proves otherwise, his abysmal track record against the Buckeyes will speak for itself.
Without rehashing the much-discussed issues against Nebraska, the Buckeyes need to take the field in Happy Valley looking like an entirely different team.
Offensive line issues abounded, hindering the Buckeyes’ powerful run game. Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson just didn’t have the room they needed to do their jobs. The usually consistent Will Howard was uncharacteristically sloppy.
The defense, while much improved over their performance against Oregon, got bogged down by unnecessary penalties (Davison Igbinosun, I’m talking to you. Knock it off with the pass interference). Even special teams got in on the action, with Jayden Fielding missing a 42-yard field goal.
Succinctly, the Buckeyes looked beatable, and Penn State typically plays us close, so I’m not expecting a huge margin of error.
Still, if I had to pinpoint which individual would play the most important role in beating Penn State, it’s none of the guys I mentioned above. The Buckeyes’ biggest asset isn’t their quarterback or any one of their star wide receivers or running backs. If they have an Achilles heel, there’s a good chance it will be canceled out on the other side of the field.
Because their biggest asset isn’t a Buckeye at all. It’s Nittany Lions’ head coach James Franklin.
Before the Penn State fans try to burn me at the stake for this, hear me out: When a program reaches the caliber of Penn State or Ohio State, coaches are judged as much by their success in high-stakes games as they are by their overall record.
I hold Ryan Day to this same standard. In fact, I sent a text today saying that if Ohio State can’t get the job done against Penn State, it might be time to re-evaluate his future with the Buckeyes. Ultimately, the number of Ws in the win column doesn’t matter if you can’t finish the job when it counts—especially at schools like Ohio State or Penn State where the fans have come to expect excellence.
With an overall record of 95-39 at Penn State, on paper, Franklin is exceptional.
But “on paper” doesn’t tell us the full story—because Franklin has historically struggled against ranked opponents, particularly top-10 opponents, and especially Ohio State. No matter how good the Nittany Lions look coming into the game against the Buckeyes, Franklin always seems to get in his own way.
His program always seems to be on the cusp of greatness. But what does Franklin have to show for it? A woeful 1-9 record — with seven consecutive losses — against the Buckeyes,
And to be fair, beating ranked teams is hard. While Day himself has a better record than Franklin against top 10 teams, OSU has lost three consecutive games to ranked opponents (last year’s loss to Michigan, their loss to Missouri in last season’s Cotton Bowl, and their one-point loss on the road to Oregon just a few weeks ago).
But there is something about Ohio State in particular that seems to be a thorn in Franklin’s side, even when we’re talking about a Penn State team that is really good.
They enter Saturday’s matchup as the No. 3 team in the country, with a 7-0 record, while the Buckeyes sit at No. 4 following the aforementioned loss to the Ducks. But who have the Nittany Lions played? Illinois? Not to mention, they struggled against a dud of a USC team (I know, I know: OSU vs. Nebraska. Pot, meet kettle).
It was just last year that Penn State came into the game against the Buckeyes with a 6-0 record and got a little too big for their breeches against another imperfect Ohio State team. So until Franklin can actually deliver on his end, you won’t exactly find me shaking in my boots.
Star quarterback Drew Allar (who is questionable for this weekend due to injury) went just 18-of-42. PSU converted just one of 16 third downs. The offense didn’t produce the way it needed to, and the defense did the football equivalent of yelling “Hey guys! Could you stop, please?” to OSU’s offense. They got outplayed by a Buckeye team that wasn’t even firing on all cylinders.
In large part, the responsibility for that falls on Franklin. His team couldn’t execute the small plays and didn’t deliver on the big ones. Despite it being a one-score game, Penn State couldn’t find the end zone until the fourth quarter.
Baffling play calls abounded. I’m talking “We’re down in the fourth quarter and the momentum gods have given us a gift. We’ve recovered a fumble from Ohio State, and now we get the ball on our own 48-yard-line. What excellent field position! You know what we should do? A TRICK PLAY FOR FUNSIES!”-bad. That play, for the record, resulted in a loss of yards, and I’m still scratching my head about it.
After the loss, Franklin didn’t really have answers for Penn State’s performance. And that’s part of his problem, in my opinion. You can’t win big games if you can’t learn from the losses. Losses are an opportunity to adjust, yet Franklin’s teams repeat the same mistakes year after year.
Now, against an Ohio State squad that looked less and less fearsome by the snap last weekend, Franklin has a chance to prove something has changed. If he can pull it off, I’ll deserve to eat crow for this column.
But until Franklin proves otherwise, I’m expecting more of the same from him: Poor execution of the fundamentals, questionable clock management, and mind-boggling play calls, with no answers for any of it.
So yes, Ohio State made mistakes against Oregon and again last weekend against Nebraska. Yes, they have to go on the road, and Happy Valley is a tough place to play. Yes, the Nittany Lions are a very good football team. But as long as James Franklin is calling the shots for Penn State, I’m putting my money on the Buckeyes.
Continue reading...