Welcome to another Monday Musings episode, I’m glad that you stopped in. Grab your beverage of choice and let’s get to this.

A Bit of Context

This past Saturday marked the 43^rd anniversary of one of the more horrific events in war/policy protest, free speech exercises, 1^st Amendment type of stuff. May 4^th 1970 was a sobering, tragic day at Kent State University; the day of the Kent State Shootings when 4 students were killed and nine injured. May 1970 was spring of my freshman year at Muskingum, which is just less than two hours south of KSU.

The period of late 60’s/early 70’s was a turbulent period; really the first that I can remember of an “us vs. them” mentality. Somehow the fact that we were all Americans escaped a lot of people. As a nation, we’ve seen much worse, and managed to work our way through it.

Like many of Ohio State’s recent high profile head coaches, Kevin McGuff has ties back to the Buckeye state.  McGuff was born in Hamilton, Ohio and after leaving the state to attend Saint Joseph’s College in Indiana, returned to begin his coaching career as an assistant coach at Miami of Ohio.  The next … [Read More]

Coach McGuff has 11 seasons as head coach; two years most recently at University of Washington preceded by nine years at Xavier (sound familiar?). In those 11 years, McGuff’s team achieved a record of  255-99 (.720), so he brings an impressive record of accomplishment with him to Columbus. In a sense, Kevin and his family are returning home; he is a native of Hamilton, OH.

Below are excerpts from Gene Smith’s announcement, as well as a link to the full announcement.

April 16, 2013

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Gene Smith, Ohio State associate vice president and director of athletics, announced today Kevin McGuff has … [Read More]

When the announcement of Foster’s firing was made, OSU said that they expected to be in the Final Four every few years, clearly setting a high bar for the program in the upcoming seasons.  Considering the fact that Ohio State has only ever made one Final Four, this would seem a bit unrealistic but with the resources of OSU and the talent produced in Ohio and elsewhere in the Midwest, it is a very achievable goal.

However, to meet this goal OSU will need to find a coach that can properly take advantage of these resources and lead the program to the next level.

While women’s basketball coaching searches aren’t followed as closely as … [Read More]

Personally, I’m ambivalent on bumper stickers, unless your rust bucket needs them to keep its fenders and bumpers in place. Well, you know at some point this had to happen, and in SEC country, no less.

A few days ago, Charles had an interesting article< on recommended football rules changes contemplated by the NCAA. Not that I think the recommendations are particularly interesting, but Charles’ interpretation of their impact certainly is. If you haven’t read the article, you should.

Women’s Basketball

In last week’s Musing’s, I thought that the team came off a couple games where I thought they showed substantial improvement. After the offensively inept Valentine’s Day loss (39-58) at Nebraska, I clearly was overly optimistic, or don’t know what I’m talking about.

Tayler Hill’s 20 points … [Read More]

Location: Madison, WI

Founded: 1848

Student Population: 42,595 total, 28,897 undergrad

School Type: Public

Stadium: Kohl Center

Seating: 17,230

Opened: 1998

Head Coach: Bobbie Kelsey

Experience: 2nd year

This is the return match between these teams. The 1^st game was played on January 20^th at ‘my’ arena where the Badgers prevailed 68 – 49, giving Wisconsin their first conference win of the season. Hopefully, things go a bit better at home for Jim Foster’s team. The table, below has a few key metrics.

Despite getting killed at the Kohl last month, the offensive numbers appear to favor the Buckeyes. Ball handling is a wash, are the defensive statistics. Wisconsin … [Read More]

School: University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Location: Lincoln, NE
Founded: 1859
Student Population: 19,345
School Type: Public – Land Grant
Stadium: Bob Devaney Sports Center
Seating: 13,595
Opened: 1976
Head Coach: Connie Yori
Experience: 11th year

The Nebraska women’s basketball team (14-6, 4-3) come to the Value City Arena to square off against the struggling Buckeyes (11-9. 1-6). Nebraska enters the game on a two game winning streak while he Buckeyes are on a two game losing streak. The table, below has a few key metrics.

It appears that this may be a statistically favorable matchup for … [Read More]

I say fate because right away, I was a fan of women’s basketball – mostly because of her. There were other reasons and the big one came in the size of my own daughter playing guard and reminding me of her in just about all aspects of women’s basketball. Hustle, tenacity, intensity and talent all express what makes up my daughter’s basketball identity. They also remind me of my favorite parts of Katie’s game.

Katie began her life of basketball in Logan, Ohio – terrorizing boys on the court. Needing … [Read More]