The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary » Greg Oden

Silver Bullet Points Ain’t Goin’ Anywhere

MaliBuckeye — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:54:42 +0000

We’re one week away from National Letter Of Intent Day, and the excitement (and chaos) is building. We’ll talk a bit this week about the idea of “verbals” and visits, but let’s dig through the news bucket a bit first, shall we? Oh, and Mark Titus’ favorite band brings us our musical inspiration for the morning. Happy Wednesday.

Buckeye 411

Taking My Talents To… Tuesday night, we got another great shot of Buckeye alum Greg Oden, just as rumors were swirling about his work to rejoin an NBA franchise. In what might seem to be the most ironic choice of programs, speculation is that his return could either be with the Cavaliers or the Miami Heat… although, I’m sure he’ll be a lot more professional about how he makes that announcement. Either way, Ohio State fans will be excited to see him back in action, and we wish

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Iowa post-game comment

Ken — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 20:46:47 +0000

A couple of things before we get started. I want to give a h/t to Tim, as well as Joe and Eric, who put together the post-game recaps in such short order. Nice job, guys. Next, after the Iowa game, I am so glad that I don’t have BTN on our base cable package.

I want to address a couple areas that bothered me, and seemingly others, about the win against Iowa. These are turnovers and rebounding, specifically offensive rebounding. In this article, I’m going to define certain things the way I see them. If your definitions differ, your conclusions are likely to be just as valid. Stats used in this article are from the great website – Statsheet.com.

Regarding turnovers, I consider them a lost opportunity, an empty possession. With OSU’s points-per-possession (PPP) of 1.11, each empty possession is significant, particularly in conference games. OSU had three … [Read More]

tBBC All-Time Tourney Semi Finals: #2 2007 vs. #3 1992

Joe Dexter — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:23:05 +0000

To the victor go the spoils, and in this case, the winner of this mythical match up gets to face the Jerry Lucas led squad of 1960. When you look at the success of teams in Ohio State history we have covered every one of them in depth in this tournament. We have yet to have a game where the parallels were scary. For the Jim Jackson led 1992 team they played in one of the best all around era’s in college basketball history. For Mike Conley and Greg Oden, there was just one team that was clearly better in the Florida Gators.

The 1992 Buckeyes was very diverse and talented group that competed with every team in the nation. They had a transfer from Indiana in Lawrence Funderburke who contributed early and often and became an eventual starter that season. Jamaal Brown is still considered one of the best … [Read More]

Buckeyes 2007 Final Four Run – One to Remember

Gary Russell II — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:02:16 +0000

With New Orleans and the Buckeyes Final Four appearance rapidly approaching, I thought it would be a great time to re-visit Ohio State’s last Final Four appearance in 2007. The 2007 team was young but their 35-4 record, topped off with a National Title game appearance, showed that you don’t always have to have experience to compete for a national title.

Let’s start by evaluating the roster. Five new recruits joined the Bucks that year led by 7’0, 5-Star, power tower named Greg Oden. He was joined by his Lawrence North high school teammate Mike Conley Jr. Conley was also a 5-Star recruit. The top of the line recruits did not end there. The third addition to this 5-star triple threat was Dayton Dunbar’s Daequan Cook. This gave Thad Matta a great trio but he still added two 4-star recruits in David Lighty from Celeveland Villla-Angela St. Joseph High School and, Junior College Transfer, Othello … [Read More]

Silver Bullet Points Hunts Bearcats

MaliBuckeye — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:54:54 +0000

In the calm before the storm… it’s midweek mayhem.

The rest of the week will be dedicated to hoops, particularly the matchup with folks from Cincy, but I thought I’d drop a little mascot knowledge on you. While that thing above may technically be a “bearcat”, I’m still convinced that the official team name should be “UChickFilAs.” According to some, it’s a version of a wolverine found in Asia, so strike two. And finally, the pajamas… with stripes… like the Bengals, but not like a bearcat. Ah well- if you want good UC coverage, you’ll need to go to the source.

The Scoops In Hoops

Closure- We haven’t heard much from our friend Robby since he moved down south (guess he’s got all SEC- uppity), but he did give the world a great article about one of our favorite non-Buckeye basketball players, looking

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Buckeye Basketball Breakdown: Northwestern

Eric — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:05:19 +0000

After the Northwestern game concluded, there was one inescapable thought in my mind – this was a very good win for us. I saw it echoed among several other sportswriters on twitter, but ultimately saw a lot more negativity from the fans.

Why did we play so poorly against a team as bad as Northwestern?

Well, first off, Northwestern is not a bad team. As I pointed out in my preview of the game, this team often makes visiting opponents look, and play, stupid. It did not come as a surprise to me that they made us fight for every minute of the game clock. That’s what these guys do at home.

Northwestern, as you may have heard at some point, is also in the Big Ten. The Big Ten this year is one of the single toughest conferences out there. It shouldn’t surprise you, then, that we’re … [Read More]

tBBC All-Time Tourney #2 2007 vs. #7 2010

Joe Dexter — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:00:27 +0000

Joe D and WVaBuckeye bring you another round of the tBBC All-Time Tourney! Today pits Evan Turner and the 2010 Buckeyes versus the Diaper Dandy 2007 squad featuring Greg Oden and Mike Conley. Enjoy!

As the seeding’s were finished and Joe and I prepared to do our match up research, this game became the most intriguing. Both teams feature National POY candidates in Greg Oden and Evan Turner and of course Evan walked away with every major award during his junior season in Columbus. Both teams feature a star from our previous match up in David Lighty who has the distinction of being on three of the nine teams we are featuring. The 2007 team came close to being only the second Buckeye team to bring home the big dance hardware since 1960. They had attempted to go through a Florida team that had their number during the regular season … [Read More]

Ohio State All Time Basketball Tournament

WVaBuckeye — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:51:38 +0000

I began a journey to do a comparison of the two greatest teams in Ohio State Basketball history. At first glance it seemed a simple task to pick two teams and write a nice article about who was better at a given skill. The more I read about teams in Buckeye lore, the more I realized I couldn’t write such an article. I had my teams picked out and as things would have it, Joe Dexter and I started brain storming. We came up with the idea of presenting tBBC readers with a challenge.

Joe and I are going to break the teams down based on certain criteria: Playmaker, Post Presence, Ball handling, Head Coach and we’ll throw in some other advantages to go with those. We are also planning on having a guest writer or two as we move along through the tourney. We’ll provide you with some stats to … [Read More]