By Eddie Calvert
Ohio State needs to be more than competitive, and no time do they need to be more than competitive than now. On January 19th the Buckeyes missed a chance to notch a marquee win against a pretty good Tennessee team. Yesterday they missed another opportunity losing 53-59 against what I believe is a better Indiana team. Competitive is good, but not good enough come tournament time.
Indiana was just good enough down the stretch to hold off Ohio State, and in doing so giving themselves a signature win and denying the Buckeyes a very much needed quality win. The big frosh Koufas (18pts 9 boards) and his other rookie partner sharpshooting Deibler (14pts)played well enough to get a victory. The seniors however, who are and need to be the leaders of this team were MIA.
This is likely going to be a make or break stretch until the final day, March 9th when the regular season ends. Of course there is the Big Ten tournament, but no team wants to have to depend on a great conference tournament run to get their ticket punched.
The Positives: It bodes well for Ohio State that we have a Syracuse win under the “W” column. It has the appearance of a top 64 team resume right now with overall wins and conference wins given the conference is known as the Big Ten (16-8, 7-4) and additionally the RPI comes in at No. 32. It doesn’t hurt either that this is the team (in name anyhow) that competed for the National Title last year.
These are all encouraging stats, yet there might be even more need for a couple of wins versus competitive games than merely getting into the big dance. We saw yesterday just how much these Buckeyes rely on their youth, and needed they truly are, so it definitely wouldn’t hurt the ego or the confidence of these guys to get a couple of wins that make us take notice.
The Negatives: I promise this is the last time I’ll say it, but where in those 16 victories is the marquee win that says the Buckeyes are that good? The schedule could work as a positive or a negative here. The selection committee seems to put a good deal of emphasis on how a team finishes the season. And the way things are set up, it is a chance to guarantee an invite, or a snub.
Here are the final 5 games, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota ( .500 in the conference 15-7 overall), Purdue and Michigan State. Four of those five are ranked, and Minnesota is no slouch. Can Ohio State afford to go 1-4, even 2-3 during this stretch? The other side of the coin is that nobody is going to keep Coach Matta out if he gets us to a 3-2 or better finish, not against that closing schedule anyhow.
So here I am at the end where I began, competitive is good, but it isn’t going to be good enough.