The Ohio State Buckeyes (20-6, 7-6) host the Northwestern Wildcats (12-14, 5-8) Wednesday evening at 7:00 PM EST. As bad as January was for the Buckeyes, February is turning out to be just as good. Meanwhile, the Wildcats are trying to right their ship. They went on a 2-week tear in mid-January to win four of five games, but have now lost three straight.
Here’s their Profile
Coach Kevin McGuff took his squad to East Lansing to try to avenge an earlier loss to Michigan State, but the results were pretty much the same, as the Spartans pulled out their xiphos swords and eviscerated the Buckeyes 70-49. The loss drops Ohio State to 14-14, 4-8.
The Buckeyes continued their poor shooting; 31% from the field, 27% from 3-pt range and 40% from the foul line. Frankly, this shooting is inexcusable. To compound their misery, the Buckeyes were outrebounded 57-33. Fortunately, Ohio State committed only 11 turnovers to MSU’s 21, so this part of the game has improved over the past couple of games.
Ameryst Alston led the Buckeyes in scoring with 25 points, but then she took nearly half the FG attempts, so I guess proportionally it works out about right. Although only scoring only 2 points, Martina Ellerbe did her par by pulling in a team high 7 rebounds. To me, the bright spot was the play of Lisa Blair, who in 21 minutes had 5 rebounds and 4 blocks; quite an active evening.
The 25th ranked Michigan State team was led by Annalise Pickrel (17 pts, 11 rbs), Becca Mills (17, 8), Aerial Powers (15, 7) and Tori Jankoska (11, 6). MSU shot 44% from the field, 33% from 3-pt range and 64% from the foul line.
The Buckeyes will hope to stop their 4 game slide on Thursday by hosting the Nebraska Cornhuskers this coming Thursday at 7:00 PM EST. Television coverage will be provided by BTDN.
Following the rather disappointing loss to Michigan, the Buckeyes have to hit the road again to take on the Fighting Illini.
The game is set to tip at 8pm eastern time this evening. You’ll be able to see the game on the Big Ten Network.
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It’s been awhile since we last visited RSB, so I will keep them short and sweet today. The amazing thing since football season is that I really have to search for things to write about when it comes to the Bumblin part, this week it was handed to me like a lob in slow-pitch softball. Let’s get trucking with the good!
Rumblin
BE MY VALENTINE!
The men’s and women’s basketball teams have been heading in opposite directions the past couple of weeks. Coach McGuff’s team has hit their hard part of the schedule and Thad Matta’s bunch has picked it up during a rough span save for the loss at home to TTUN.
Coach Kevin McGuff has actually done a great coaching job with this years unit who were not expected to compete in the B1G let alone upset some of the better teams with what was left in the cupboard by Coach Foster. Truth be known he has a first class staff that has been working it’s tail off, and the players tails, since day one. His organizational skills and the ability to get a lot out of those players has been rather remarkable. There is plenty of help on the horizon as he quite possibly has the number one class in the country for next year. Late in the season Coach McGuff and staff get a A- from me personally.
I want to go on record as saying that something I put into a basketball roundtable here a few weeks ago was way off base.
I WILL CONSIDER IT!
Thad Matta. I have been amazed at the coaching jobs he has done in the past with respect to letting his teams work themselves out of a slump or trouble. I have believed for a long time he could make any team better and is struggling to do so with this group. I don’t see a lot of improvement in them but we will see how they are when it really counts in March.
Funny what a little winning streak can do for a persons beliefs. What I have come to realize is that Thad probably is doing his best coaching job ever. I mean let’s face it, he’s working with far less than maybe he ever has since coming to Columbus. He will win a minimum of 20 games again to start his career. Yeah, think about that for just a second. He will have won atleast 20 games every season he has been a head coach. Really a remarkable statistic considering most people would struggle to 500 with a couple of those teams including the current one.
Stumblin Read More
The #22 Ohio State Buckeyes (19-6, 6-6), have dropped four consecutive games in the last two weeks. Next up are the Illinois Fighting Illini of Illinois (14-11, 3-9) on Saturday evening at the Value City Arena. Since they last played on January 23rd (OSU winning 62-55), Ohio State is 3-2 and sits four games from the top in the conference with six games to play. Illinois has lost four of five games and now sit at the bottom of the conference.
Here’s their Profile
The Ohio State Buckeyes (14-13, 4-7) will try to stop a 3 game slide by going to the Breslin Center on Saturday to take on the Michigan State Spartans (16-8, 8-3). Ohio State will try to get out of their recent shooting funk while throwing a defensive net on a high scoring Spartan backcourt. MSU win try to get back on track after a tough loss in Lincoln, NE.
Here’s their Profile
For the second straight week we go all “in loco parentis” for SBP… here’s the soundtrack to match, from back in the day. Or as I call it, “The Day”.
“No, the cat is a bit to the left…”
Buckeye 411
#22 Ohio State (19-5. 6-5) hosted #15 Michigan (17-6, 9-2) this evening in their only regular season meeting. Despite a horrendous January, OSU entered this game three games behind MSU/UM in the standings, and with 7 games to play, a legitimate chance to win the regular season championship. This has been some season..
In a classic example of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, the Buckeyes started out on fire, let Michigan back into the game before half, then watched Michigan put on a rebounding clinic, to fall to the Wolverines 70-60. This drops OSU to 19-6, 6-6 and pretty much takes them out of any possibility for the regular season championship. This was a game where Michigan overcame a 1st half 10-point deficit by exerting their will over the Buckeyes. Defensively, OSU was unable to block anyone out on the defensive boards. Offensively, despite early success with looking inside to score, had periods of settling for, and missing, perimeter shots.
This was as disappointing loss as I’ve seen lately, and in the past month and a half, I’ve seen several. The team got away, offensively, from what had been working, didn’t block out on the defensive boards, and generally let Michigan have their way.
