Men's Basketball Buckeye Tidbits 2006-2007 Season

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

COMMENTARY
Buckeyes have proper mind-set for tournaments
Saturday, March 03, 2007
TODD JONES

TERRY GILLIAM ASSOCIATED PRESS Ohio State coach Thad Matta got a lot of publicity for putting his gum back in his mouth after it fell out against Wisconsin.

Finally, it?s March, a time when the sun begins peeking through, hints of green dot the landscape, and college basketball referees swallow their whistles.
The meek might inherit the earth, but that doesn?t include basketball courts during March Madness.
This is a time marked by bruises, floor burns and bloody noses. Every game is a stroll down a dark alley. Forget style points as Ohio State winds up its stellar regular season today at Michigan before venturing into the crucible of tournament time.

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[osugrad21]

DDN

Buckeyes could win it all, or lose early

​

By Brian Kollars
Dayton Daily News

Sunday, March 04, 2007
It's tough to watch and read the coverage of Friday's bus crash involving Bluffton University's baseball team. I can't imagine how gut-wrenching it is to lose someone that way. I do know one thing: The parents of Springfield's A.J. Ramthun, the team's unofficial spokesman, should be very proud of their son. What an amazing, thoughtful kid. Our prayers go out to the family of Verona's Cody Holp and the others who died in the accident.
Race for No. 1: I'm not sold on the Ohio State basketball team. Then again, the Buckeyes appear to have as good a chance as anyone of cutting down the nets next month in Atlanta. It's going to be tough filling out those NCAA tournament brackets. I can't recall the last time when there were eight or nine teams with legitimate shots at a No. 1 seed.

Cont'd...

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Bucknuts.com (free)

Walk-Ons Peters, Titus Do Their Part.......by V.R. Bryant.

 

[jimotis4heisman]

http://theotherpaper.com/TOP3-1/3-1_coverstory.html

GRIM MARCH Remember when having a good basketball team was fun? By Erik Johns / March 1, 2007

File/Dan Trittschuh “Every time they take the floor, they’re expected to win”: Unlike the Cinderellas of ’99 and ’06, these Buckeyes don’t get to be the spunky underdogs
The top-ranked Ohio State basketball team finally got its signature win Sunday. In front of a rabid Schottenstein Center crowd, the Buckeyes grabbed a one-point lead with 3.9 seconds left and blocked Wisconsin’s final shot to claim a 49-48 victory.
The win put Ohio State atop both the Associated Press and coaches’ polls. And those skeptical advanced degree holders in bracketology finally found themselves penciling OSU in as a probable No. 1 seed for the NCAA
tournament.
In short, it was a very good day for Ohio State basketball.
Yet there’s an odd vibe floating through Buckeye Country. Stick your nose into an online chat room or water cooler conversation and you’ll sense it.
It’s the same unease that infects hoops fanatics at the likes of North Carolina, Duke and Kansas—and football fans at Ohio State—every
season.
For the first time in more than a generation, OSU has a basketball team that is incapable of pleasantly surprising us. Win after win after win is expected, as is a trip to the Georgia Dome for the Final Four.

good read worth the time... i like this quote

“I really believe that being hungry and being the underdog is something you can’t manufacture,” he said this week. “There’s something to be said for wanting to get to the mountain, wanting to prove you belong. It can galvanize the human spirit in a way that being full and satisfied on the top can’t.”
“You can’t pretend what it’s like being homeless if you have a nice home.”

and this is interesting

“It has been challenging,” Matta said Sunday, shortly after cutting down the nets to celebrate his second straight conference title. “I told the guys this. I was worried.”
“I was honest with them. I said, ‘I’ve never coached a team that every time they take the floor, they’re expected to win.’”

 

[crazybuckfan40]

You have to love the confidence that these guys seem to possess...

I said it in another thread, but you have Lewis, Butler, Harris, Twig who were on the big ten championship team last year and guys like Conley, Oden, and Cook who have won mulitiple state and AAU titles, so they know when push comes to shove in crunch time they don't tense up as much most freshmen do, much like Texas has done while having leads down the stretch in their games...

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

OSU Insider.

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

OHIO STATE NOTEBOOK
Butler likes OSU?s No. 1-seed chances
Sunday, March 11, 2007


CHICAGO ? Does a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament ride on the outcome of the Big Ten tournament championship game today?
Not for Ohio State, guard Jamar Butler said.
"I think we have that locked up," he said yesterday after the No. 1-ranked Buckeyes defeated Purdue 63-52 in a Big Ten tournament semifinal in the United Center. "But we don?t want to stop playing and lose the championship game. We want to win the championship game and get the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament."

Continued.....

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

OSU finds motivation in third-best ranking
Monday, March 12, 2007
Bob Baptist
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH



CHICAGO ? Seventeen wins in a row, the No. 1 ranking in the country and a Big Ten tournament title to go with its regularseason championship. The Ohio State men?s basketball team should feel pretty good about itself going into the NCAA Tournament.
But not too good, thanks to the selection committee rating them the third-best No. 1 seed in the tournament. "I think we can use that" as motivation, guard Jamar Butler said last night after the Buckeyes were surprised to see themselves behind defending NCAA champion Florida and North Carolina when the tournament field was announced.

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[Padraig]

I like the motivation 'angle'...I like how we match up with North Carolina a little better than Florida, so I like the way the Brackets shake out for our road to the NC Game...and I like the fact that we have a potential shot to avenge the only other two losses the team had this year (that we haven't already).

And what would be better than a chance to 'clense the pallet' from early January by taking on the Gaytors in the Final?

With all due respect to a very, very select few of our Florida Fan friends, I am so sick of the Crocodiles that the only thing that would give me more pleasure than an extremely early exit from the tourney by Florida would be a woodshed ass-woopin by the Buckeyes in the NC Game.

In any case, 3rd #1 seed aside, I like how things are set up for tOSU.

:osu:

 

[osugrad21]

CPD

Conley's runner scores 100 on the Oden test



Tuesday, March 13, 2007 Doug Lesmerises

Plain Dealer Reporter
Columbus -- There's at least one shot in America that Greg Oden has never blocked. Little guys looking for ways over 7-foot swatters should study Ohio State point guard Mike Conley Jr.
His runner in the lane, pushed up waist high from what you think is his opposite hand while slicing through the defense, might be better known as the Wisconsin shot, because 16 days ago Conley used it in the final seconds to beat the Badgers, 49-48. But he's been working on it for a while, befuddling his big friend for years.
"He's always had it," Oden said, "but I think after that Wisconsin game, he's never missed it."

 

[osugrad21]

Dispatch

OSU Insider

 

[osugrad21]

Dispatch

OSU Insider

 

[osugrad21]

Dispatch

NCAA TOURNAMENT
Fans apparently sour on Buckeyes? Sweet 16 tickets
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Meredith Heagney
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

TOM DODGE DISPATCH Peggy Miller and Nick Nichols didn?t have much company at the Value City Arena ticket office yesterday morning.
Peggy Miller was nervous. Her son, who lives in Dallas, was putting on the pressure: Better get those basketball tickets, Mom. Got to get there early.
The Hilliard woman didn?t sleep much Sunday night. Yesterday morning, she put on her Ohio State sweater and a red scarf, grabbed her scarlet-andgray afghan and arrived at Value City Arena at 6 a.m., two hours before tickets went on sale for Thursday?s Ohio State-Tennessee South Regional semifinal in San Antonio.

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[OSUBasketballJunkie]

msnbc.com

Ohio State still lacking that go-to star

Despite Oden's physical presence, Buckeyes still in search of hero


OPINION
By Mike Celizic
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 12:35 a.m. ET March 20, 2007

If Ohio State wants to win its first national basketball championship since John F. Kennedy occupied the Oval Office, sooner or later ? and the sooner the better ? the Buckeyes are going to need a hero in the NCAA Tournament.
They?ve had a one-game hero ? two actually ? when they really needed one to get past heavy underdog Xavier in the Round of 32. And neither one was the man who is supposed to be the difference-maker for the nation?s top-ranked team. That man would be center Greg Oden, who watched the end of the game from the bench after fouling out just in time to miss the final sequence. Instead, Ron Lewis, who went for 27 points, drained the three that tied the game and freshman Mike Conley Jr. scored 7 in the subsequent overtime that finally sent Xavier home.

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[osugrad21]

DDN

Will Buckeyes join the exclusive club?

http://www.daytondailynews.com/s/co...lege/osu/2007/03/21/ddn032107sportsdata.html#​

By the Dayton Daily News

Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Here's something possibly on the horizon for several prominent Ohio State players. Nine men have won state high school, NCAA and NBA championships.
Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr. and Daequan Cook have won high school titles. They could be two-thirds of the way to this list in a couple of weeks:

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