Buckeye Blogger Network
Galileo Galilei thinks it through
Welcome to Monday Musings, glad to see you. Grab your coffee and let’ proceed. Let’s tee this up with women’s golf.
Women’s Golf
The NCAA tournament Regionals were played May 9-11, and Coach Hessian’s Ohio State team traveled to Palo Alto to compete in the Western Region. They didn’t leave their heart in San Francisco, but they did end their season in Palo Alto. Unfortunately, the golf didn’t go as well as planned as the Buckeyes finished 15th in the 24 team field. The top eight (8) team from each region advanced to the next round.
It was another near miss (more below) for the Buckeyes who finished the event at +47 to par, while the cut-off score to advance was +37. It was a ‘near miss’ in the respect that over the course of the three-round tournament, if each of the five players could have shot one stroke lower per round, OSU would have advanced. If one more tee shot would have found the fairway, if one more putt would have dropped…
I thought this was a transition year for the Buckeyes, having lost three key players from last year’s team: Vicky Villanueva (graduation), Rachel Rohanna (left school for LPGA) and Big Ten Freshman of Year Kendall Prince (transfer). That’s a lot of talent to replace. Fortunately, the openings gave underclassmen Claudia Lim, Jan Chanpalangsri and Sheridan Balyeat ample playing time. As I expected, under Coaches Hession and Strom, the Buckeyes gradually improved their play as the season progressed. It was enjoyable to see their improvement.
Here we are, another week. Grab your coffee and let’s get right to it.
Football
A bit of a slow week, but not entirely dormant for Buckeye fans. Obviously, I’m referring to Jim Bollman being hired as OC by Michigan State after a quite brief stint as offensive line coach at Purdue. Evidently, Jim thought that he only needed a month or so to get the Purdue offensive line to the standards that we experienced in Columbus during his tenure. Since this chain of events involved Bollman, Mark Dantonio and Darrell Hazell, the Jim Tressel Coaching Tree is in full leaf.
Men’s Basketball
Entering the week, the Buckeyes came off an impressive display of basketball, gouging the Gophers 71-45 in Columbus. Then Ohio State had a truly inspired effort to beat a tough, especially this time of year, Michigan State team, 68-60 on Sunday. On Wednesday OSU had an all too common experience in Evanston, toughing out a 63-53 win over a shorthanded Northwestern squad. There was quite a bit of ebb and flow until about the 3:57 mark, after ‘Zelle Smith’s 3-pointer gave OSU the lead 51-49. From that point on, 3 steals and 2 blocked shots by the Buckeyes ebbed the Wildcats into submission. Read More
Yessiree-bob, the start of another week. With coffee in hand, let’s get right to it.
Football
A bit of a slow week, but not entirely dormant. For instance, Charles has an article on rules changes that he’d like to see implemented. They concern ability to return onside kicks, number of coach’s challenges and ball placement for overtime. You should read his article, but really need to for my comments to make sense. Go ahead, I’ll wait….
I did a casual study (I was wearing jeans at the time) of Division 1-A overtime games in 2012, research source being ESPN game recaps. There were 33 games that went into overtime. The game summary did not specify who actually won the overtime coin toss, so I assumed that in all instances, the coin toss winner chose to play defense in overtime. However, the following citation from a paper by Brams & Sanderson makes me think that’s a pretty solid assumption:
Between 1996, when the present college overtime rule was adopted, until 2007, there were 328 overtime games. In only four games did the winner of the coin toss choose to play offense (Rosen and Wilson, 2007). The fact that 99% of the teams that win the coin toss elect to defend first is prima facie evidence that there is an advantage to doing so.
Back to the 2012 overtime games. Of the 33 games, 22 (67%) were won by the team that won the coin toss and elected to play defense. There were 13 losses incurred by the ‘first offense’ teams due to some sort of offensive malfunction; 7 by missed field goals, 4 by interceptions and 2 on loss of downs. I just quickly eyeballed these drive results, so your mileage may vary; however, it still represents the gist of the offensive failings. Since these teams also ran plays from scrimmage to get as close as possible before attempting the FG, having an initial spot at the 25 yard line is still not a bad idea. Read More
Although Spring is 6 weeks away, more or less depending on your ZIP code, the thoughts of golf are beginning to stir. This is to set up up that periodically, from now through mid-May, I’ll be doing some articles on Women’s Golf at Ohio State. These will be match previews, match recaps and other tidbits. These articles will complement the eye-wateringly good work that Janelle does with her ‘News from the WHAC’ series. I’m motivated to do this series for two reasons; OSU has a rich history in NCAA golf, and I golf a fair amount. So there.
Below are fairly brief thumbnails of both coaches and their team.
Therese Hession
The Buckeyes are led by Coach Therese Hession (22nd year) and Assistant Coach Lisa Strom (3rd year). Head coach Therese Hession concluded her 21st season heading the Ohio State women’s golf program at the end of the 2011-12 season and has continued the strong Buckeye golf tradition, building it to even greater heights.
Over her tenure, Hession has led the Buckeyes to seven Big Ten championships, including four of the last 10, and 13 NCAA championship appearances. Her squads have also competed in 19 NCAA regionals the past 20 years, including the last 18 in a row. For her efforts and impressive results, Hession has been named Big Ten Coach of the Year six times (1993, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2005). Read More
