The Buckeye Battle Cry

Big Ten Tournament Day 3 OpenThread

2010-03-13T21:30:50Z

More photos » Darron Cummings - AP

We're going that way! No *that* way! (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Here's an OpenThread for the second game of the day, the battle between #2 Purdue and #6 Minnesota. Should be an interesting game, so feel free to stick around and leave your thoughts!

Buckeyes advance to Big Ten Championship game, beating Illinois 88-81 in double OT

2010-03-13T21:15:15Z

More photos » Michael Conroy - AP

about 4 hours ago: Ohio State's Evan Turner (21) blocks a shot by Illinois's Mike Davis (24) in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in the semifinals of the Big Ten conference tournament Indianapolis, Saturday, March 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

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The Fighting Illini did everything they could to win the game, but the Buckeyes simply wanted it more as they fought through a double overtime battle for the 88-81 victory in the Big Ten Tournament Semi-final. Evan Turner lead the way with 31 points and 10 rebounds for a double double, and William Buford joined him on the double double with 22 points and 10 rebounds for the game.

The Buckeyes got it started early down low in the paint. First Buford and then Lauderdale benefited from good passes down low to find easy baskets that Illinois was clearly not paying attention for. The Buckeyes defense was a big key to the great opening as the Bucks forced 4 quick turnovers in the first few minutes of the game. That defensive effort also led Illinois to shoot a measly 1-7 from the floor for the first few minutes putting themselves into a little hole.

Illinois' shooting woes weren't to last however. After taking a 6 point deficit early, the Illini began to find their stroke and started to keep pace with the Buckeyes. With a couple solid buckets Illinois began to gain some confidence and started to take it to the Bucks on both ends of the court. Solid defense managed to completely shut the Buckeyes down on the offensive end and allowed their offense to begin to take control. With the improved defense, Ohio State started to play sloppy, out of control basketball that cost them several turnovers and allowed Illinois to go on a 12-0 run to take a 4 point lead with 8 minutes left in the game.

The Buckeyes found themselves in a horrendous shooting drought mid-way through the first half. For almost 6 minutes the Bucks simply couldn't buy a basket until William Buford managed to drop in a three pointer to end the drought and open the basket up again. Turner dropped in a long two not long after, and Buford followed that with another huge three to keep the Bucks in it. But Illinois wasn't going to just lay down that easily, as DJ Richardson drilled a 3 to answer Bufords and keep the lead on Illinois' side of the court.

The big issue with the Buckeyes to that point, after the fast start, had to be a distinct lack of patience. Having beaten Illinois twice already, OSU might have been a little overconfident early on and believed they could get away with fancy stuff down the lane. Illinois forced 9 turnovers in the half, 8 of which occurred in the last 10 minutes and led to their 6 point lead going into the half with the score at 37-31. The other issue was that the OSU players seemed to want to try to do everything themselves (especially Evan Turner, understandably). Illinois posted 12 assists to the Buckeyes 6 - the big difference in the half - suggesting that the Buckeyes weren't distributing the ball to open shooters or finding ways to pass the ball down low.

The Bucks shot a decent 44% (11-25) for the half, and 44.4% (4-9) from the three - particularly surprising with Jon Diebler sitting on the bench for the last 10 minutes of the half with 2 fouls. Illinois hit a similar 46.9% (15-32) from the field and 46.2% (6-13) from three. The other surprising statistic was that OSU only had 4 fouls for the half, either because the refs were going to let them play or because Illinois wasn't trying to take it down low - not that they seemed to need to.

The second half started with some of the ugliest basketball I think I have ever seen. It's best that I don't describe it, but it honestly made 1^st grade basketball look elegant. There was some fantastic effort from Jon Diebler to make the first Buckeye basket of the half happen after OSU coughed up a turnover on their first possession. The Buckeyes effort managed to close the gap to two, but Illinois rebuilt the lead quickly by looking down low to Tisdale for a couple huge buckets and even extended it after Ohio State couldn't find a shot on the other end of the court.

Illinois had extended the lead to 11 on a strong three pointer. On the other end of the court, Diebler missed an open look that rattled around in the rim and bounced back out. On Illinois' next possession, William Buford stole the ball and drove it down the court into a player to draw a foul and casually flipped the ball over his back as he spun out of the contact. By some miracle the shot went down. Buford wasn't able to hit the free throw, but the shot seemed to give the Buckeyes some life and allowed them to begin to close the gap.

Before Illinois could blink, the Buckeyes had closed the gap from 11 to 1 in the span of about 2 minutes. After the Buford "layup" (for lack of a better word) Evan Turner found an open three pointer from the right corner to cut the lead, and followed that up with a quick steal and slam to close it to within four. On the next possession the buckeyes tried to take it down low resulting in a scrum for the ball in the paint. David Lighty managed to tap the ball out towards the top of the key while lying on his stomach where Diebler scooped up the shot and drained the three in one fluid motion to finish the quick run.

The run wasn't to stop there though. Illinois found themselves reeling after Buford sank a short 5 foot jump shot to take the lead. Illinois couldn't find any kind of room to run their offense with the Buckeyes suddenly playing impassioned defense and on their subsequent possession weren't able to find a shot. The Bucks responded with a huge Diebler three pointer to continue the run, which was further continued by a three pointer from Buford. The outburst was a 20-0 run for the Buckeyes in 4 and a half minutes of the game. Illinois' drought continued for a total of 6 and a half minutes when they finally sank a couple free throws to end it.

Things started to get tense when Evan Turner picked up his fourth foul. Especially troublesome was that after the long Buckeye run to go up 9, the Buckeyes then coughed up the ball 3 times in their next four possessions to bring Illinois back to within 3 with 4 minutes left in the game. At that point the game became a grind it out battle, each team looking for easy buckets down low and drawing fouls. This was mostly dictated by the fact that the outside shots had just stopped falling for both teams. That all changed when Demetri McCamey drained a big shot outside to give the Illini the two point lead. The Buckeyes managed to tie it up at 66, but that gave Illinois one last chance to try to take the win. With three seconds left on the clock, they looked for a shot down low that just wasn't there, sending the game into Overtime.

The score in the overtime fluctuated back and forth. Neither team really seemed to be in control, but the Buckeyes in particular seemed completely gassed. Things seemed particularly grim when Demetri McCamey dropped a huge three pointer from the right wing with seconds left on the shot clock and a hand in his face. The shot put Illinois up 4 which almost seemed insurmountable at that point. Evan Turner, however, had other ideas as he took control of the ball on offense and put in the layups to keep the Bucks within 2. With time running out, Turner rolled in a driving layup around his defender to lock up the score.

Illinois still had a chance to try to win it, but for the second time in a row completely failed to get a shot off before time had expired. At the start of the second overtime, Diebler stepped up and hit a huge three pointer to set the tone. The Buckeyes sensing that they needed some effort in order to put this Illini team away, began to play with desire. A great steal by Madsen saved from going out of bounds lead to a Turner layup to give the Buckeyes a 5 point lead. That lead was quickly slashed to two by Tyler Griffey on a huge arcing three pointer over an outstretched hand, a distinct message that Illinois was not going to go down quite that easily.

With a minute left to go in the second overtime Evan Turner fouled out of the game with the Buckeyes holding a narrow 3 point lead. Lighty took over for Turner scoring 4 quick points in the last 30 seconds, including one off a steal to seal the game. Illinois' last realistic possession was a complete miss rebounded by the Buckeyes taking the Illini out.

Illinois shot 41.3% (31-75) from the field and 33.3% (10-30) from three. Demetri McCamey lead the way for the Illini with 22 points, along with DJ Richardson's 15, Mike Tisdale's 10 and Tyler Griffey's 13. Mike Davis' also scored 13 but grabbed a double double with 18 rebounds.

Diebler has now hit 243 career three pointers, setting an OSU career record. His 14 points for the game were only topped by Turner with 31 and Buford with 22, both of whom picked up double doubles with rebounds (10 a piece). David Lighty also topped double digits for the Buckeyes, scoring 12. The Bucks as a team shot 47.8% (32-67) from the field and 36% (9-25) from three.

The Buckeyes advance to the Big Ten Championship game to face the winner of the Purdue/Minnesota matchup. That game will be played on CBS at 3:30 pm Eastern Time tomorrow (March 14^th).

Illinois GameThread: Big Ten Tournament Edition

2010-03-13T17:30:28Z

Michael Conroy - AP

1 day ago: Ohio State's Dallas Lauderdale, left, rejects a shot by Michigan's DeShawn Sims in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten conference tournament in Indianapolis, Friday, March 12, 2010. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

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Here is your GameThread for the second day of action for the Buckeyes! The Bucks and the Illini have faced each other twice so far this year, so here are our Pregame and Postgame coverage for those matchups.

Pregame: Game 1, Game 2

Recap: Game 1, Game 2

It's going to be interesting to see what the complexion of this game is. The Buckeyes whipped Illinois both times they faced them this year (in fact, it was by almost precisely the same score) and may be coming out hot after that spectacular finish yesterday against the Wolverines. Incidentally, here's a detriot radio broadcast from after that game. Listen and enjoy!

As for the Illini, they are coming of a very good win over a hot Wisconsin team. Up 10 at the half, they managed to withstand a Badger run over the last couple minutes to escape with a 4 point victory.

Here are some things to watch for:

How hot will Illinois be after probably securing their spot in the NCAA Tournament yesterday? Will they be emotionally drained, or will they play out of their minds?
Essentially the same question for the Bucks. Will Evan Turner's big shot have drained the Buckeyes, or will they be playing with renewed energy and focus?
How does Demetri McCamey play? He's been so very cold against the Buckeyes this year.
Does Evan Turner try to take over the game earlier, in fear that his team is going to let it slip towards the end? (this would not be a good thing)
Does William Buford play better? He ended with 12 points on 6-13 shooting, but he started out fairly poorly.
And a bonus! Dallas Lauderdale disappeared yesterday scoring only 2 points and grabbing 5 boards. Does he return to the end of season form we were enjoying?

The game is at 1:30 PM Eastern Time on CBS. Hope to see everyone here!

Go Bucks!

Big Ten Tournament: Day 2 Recap

2010-03-13T04:40:11Z

More photos » Darron Cummings - AP

1 day ago: Ohio State's Evan Turner (21) celebrates his last second, game winning three-pointer with Jon Diebler, left, and David Lighty in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten conference tournament in Indianapolis, Friday, March 12, 2010. Ohio State beat Michigan 69-68. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

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Talk about an exciting day of basketball! All of the games were in question at some point near the end of the second halves and, in one very important one, it came down to a last ditch near half-court shot to secure the win. You just know that tomorrow's semi-final games are going to simply not live up to the expectations after these battles.

#1 Ohio State escapes #8 Michigan 69-68

The Buckeyes seemed to spend the day toying with their food as they started out the first half down 19-10 and then built a 25-6 run to close out the half up 10. They then proceeded to let the lead slip, build it back to 10 and then repeat throughout the entirety of the second half until finally Michigan managed to tie it up at 66 with seconds on the clock and managed to secure the ball and get a timeout with 9 seconds left. On the inbounds, Michigan found Manny Harris for a floating 2 pointer over the hand of Dallas Lauderdale to give Michigan the 68-66 lead with 2.2 seconds that should have sealed the victory.

But Michigan forgot that Ohio State had Big Ten Player of the Year Evan Turner on their side. Michigan chose not to defend the inbounds pass which immediately went to the Villain. Evan Turner drove it past the half court on the right side and jacked up a pretty shot with mere tenths of a second left. The ball tickled the twine as easy as if Turner had dunked it.

Michigan most likely ends their season with the loss. They finish 15-17 overall and 7-11 in conference.

The Buckeyes next face Illinois, who won the next game on our list.

#4 Wisconsin falls to #5 Illinois 58-54

Illinois managed to secure a 10 point lead at halftime 30-20 on the strength of fantastic 3 point shooting (60%) and great field goal shooting (52.5%) while limiting Wisconsin to only 28.6% from the field. Through the second half, Illinois maintained the lead but Wisconsin was always only a step behind - just within striking distance. Wisconsin managed to close it to within 2 with a mere 40 seconds left, but Illinois closed out the game strong and walked away with the 4 point victory.

Wisconsin has earned itself an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament with a 23-8 overall record and a 13-5 record in the Big Ten.

Illinois may have secured their own NCAA bid with the win. They next face the Buckeyes in the Semi-final game tomorrow at 1:30 PM Eastern Time.

#2 Purdue handles #7 Northwestern 69-61

As much as that title suggests that Purdue dominated the game, the game was actually quite the scuffle. Northwestern even enjoyed an 11 point lead early in the first half, having limited Purdue to single digit points through the first 10 minutes of the game. Purdue began to surge and really never looked back at that point. Northwestern managed to stay in lock step with the Boilermakers after Purdue took the lead, but they were unable to overcome the deficit at all.

Northwestern will likely find themselves in the NIT with a final record of 20-13 with a 7-11 record in the Big Ten.

Purdue continues on to the Semi-final round to face the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

#2 Michigan State falls to #6 Minnesota 72-67 in Overtime

Minnesota and Michigan State both battled it out on the hardwood all night long, often trading the lead back and forth. Finally, in the middle of the second half, Minnesota managed to secure a 7 point lead and looked like they were going to run away with the game. It wasn't to be, however, when the Spartans finally remembered how to play basketball and began to close the gap again.

With 55 seconds left, Minnesota found itself tied with a suddenly surging MSU team at 55 and had the ball. Like the vast majority of close games the Gophers have played this season, Minnesota's attempt at a close shot whiffed completely. MSU's Draymond Green hit the block to keep the game tied and give MSU the ball with 15 seconds left. Kalin Lucas attempted to drive to the basket but lost control and threw it out of bounds giving Minnesota the ball with 3 seconds left. Minnesota attempted a repeat of Evan Turner's heroics from earlier in the day, but MSU actually played defense on it and managed to alter the shot enough to have it miss and force overtime.

The overtime was all Minnesota as the Gophers gave Izzo the final headache of the Big Ten season this year.

Michigan State will continue on to the NCAA Tournament after compiling a 24-8 overall record.

Minnesota will next play the Purdue Boilermakers tomorrow night in the mid-afternoon game.

We'll have two more GameThreads tomorrow for the Buckeyes and for the other Big Ten Matchup. Hope to see you all there!

Oregon suspends QB Masoli for 2010 season

2010-03-13T03:20:58Z

Oregon suspends QB Masoli for 2010 season

The only question left is....will he REALLY be suspended for the season, or just 8 weeks, meaning he can practice in May.

Oregon doesn't really have a good track record on this whole "suspended for the year" mantra. See Blount, LeGarrette.

"The Shot" - here's the video

2010-03-12T19:41:11Z

Here it is, for those looking around....

Now, we've gotta do two things with this....

1) Celebrate the awesomeness that is Evan Turner. He deserves the National POY and he'll get it.

2) Wonder what the HELL Michigan was thinking! How do you NOT pressure the inbounds pass? How do you allow the Big Ten POY to dribble the ball uncontested and allow him to launch a relatively unguarded shot at the rim to win?

Once again, on behalf of all of us here in Ohio, THANK YOU for hiring West Virginia rejects to coach your teams. We appreciate it.

-----------

UPDATE - When watching the replay tonight on various sports channels, watch the reaction of Stu Douglass (the Michigan player closest to Turner). His right arm went up in the air to "defend" Turner's shot, and it stayed in the air, motionless, for at least ten seconds after the shot went in.

Big Ten Tournament Day 2 OpenThread

2010-03-12T19:30:22Z

Hannah Foslien - AP

Hey Gophers! Tubby is pointing the way to the NCAA Tournament! That way! No, THAT way!. (AP Photo/Hannah Foslien)

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Holy crap what an ending! The Buckeyes win on a fantastic one-third court three-pointer from Evan Turner! Give him the Wooden Award now, please.

Here is your OpenThread for the remainder of today's games! Hopefully they turn out as excited as the one you just watched.

I will have another recap of the game later tonight, but for now Jim has an excellent recap of the game.

Game 2: 25 Minutes after the conclusion of Game 1

#4 Wisconsin Badgers - Bucky's 5th Quarter

#5 Illinois Fighting Illini - Hail to the Orange

Game 3: 6:30 PM Eastern Time

#2 Purdue Boilermakers - Hammer and Rails

#7 Northwestern Wildcats - Sippin' on Purple

Game 4: 25 Minutes after game 3 (Approx. 9 PM Eastern Time)

#3 Michigan State Spartans - The Only Colors

#6 Minnesota Golden Gophers - The Daily Gopher

Enjoy the rest of the games today!

Turner's last second three lifts Buckeyes past tsun: 69-68

2010-03-12T19:02:18Z

More photos » Darron Cummings - AP

This isn't from the game today, but this is a good reaction for the way it ended. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

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Welcome to my first ever basketball recap. I am filling in for Eric today because he has other obligations (or something, excuses excuses). As many of you may know, I am more of a football oriented Ohio State fan, so I am going to handle this recap a little differently.

Basically, I am going to give you my thoughts throughout the game. I hope that some of you find this humorous, I don't know a lot about basketball, but I know enough to understand what pisses me off, so enjoy.

Also, I have this curse where I am unable to enjoy watching a basketball game because when I watch my team does terrible. For this reason, I may have to turn off the game from time to time to reverse this negative karma... so I apologize if there are any holes in the coverage.

Here we go.

GO BUCKS!

Opening tip controlled by Michigan... not off to a good start, the remote is in my hand.

So far it has been back and forth, nothing is making me too angry thus far. Michigan has been turning the ball over, and if Ohio State can start hitting a higher percentage of their shots we will be in good shape.

Tied up at 6-6 five minutes in, things have been pretty sloppy for both teams so far.

Lauderdale with a foul and already on the bench... and another missed shot on the other end... anger rising.

Beautiful, Turner with the pull up J, Turner is always good to relieve your blood pressure.

Okay, so Ohio S

tate is down by 2, I am going to go make a sandwich, I expect to be up by 6 when I get back.

But before I go, Madsen really sucks on defense.

Just for posterity, it is now 14-8, I am leaving.

Okay, I am back with my sandwich. I have a confession to make, I was in and out of the room so I blame myself that we aren't in the lead right now. Turner hits the shot to make it 21-17 UM.

I will take personal responsibility for that series of at least four missed shots in a row. I seriously am the kiss of death for any basketball team.

Lauderdale with his second foul and back to the bench, we can't find any consistency on offense right now.

Diebler with the drive and lay up to put us up 23-22... if we can stay hot on offense we should be able to build a lead before half. When Michigan is on offense it is a circus, if we can clamp down and focus on both end of the court we have got this.

At least Madsen can hit free throws. Up 27-23.

We need to keep this momentum going, Turner with the almost steal, it would be nice to crush the weasel's souls before half time.

Big Ten officials suck balls regardless of whether they get this back court violation call right or not, and they do, Ohio State ball.

Madsen with some more offense, I can almost forgive him for being terrible on D if he keeps hitting shots.

Ohio State up 29-23. Michigan with the time out at 1:47 left in the half, they must feel the game slipping away, close out strong Buckeyes!

Buford with the three to end the half, a thing of beauty. It wasn't quite as soul crushing an end to the half as I would have liked, butI will take a ten point lead. If the Bucks can continue this momentum into the second half it will be happy times.

Second Half

According to the TV Ohio State went on a 25-6 run to end the half... this run coinciding almost exactly with me making my sandwich.

In other news, Lauderdale with an offensive foul and back to the bench, which means Madsen is back on the court.

Madsen with more offense thanks to some great ball movement, you know what, he's alright.

Novak with a brick, I hate that guy.

Holy crap, Madsen going for offensive MVP with the dunk. Ohio State up by 12.

Charge on Turner, that was almost awesome. Still up by twelve.

Getting sloppy again, time for me to stop saying nice things or enjoying the game. Time out, up by ten with 16 to go.

Time for me to leave again after a couple of threes from the bad guys. Hold that, commercial break, I hate wasting my away time on commercials, we will see how it goes after the break before I go somewhere.

Wow, Michigan cheerleaders, not a good way to start the post break action.

Diebler three, much better.

Same exact play for another bad guy three... they can stop doing that anytime now.

Lighty with the nice take, I am so confused about whether I can keep watching or not.

Hightower is such a jackass. Apparently that was the third foul on Madsen. Both big men with 3 now.

Nice, Buckeyes showing a little spark, back up by ten after a nice series on offense, I guess I can keep watching for the time being.

Novak is a douche, just thought I would throw that out there during this break.

A nice damnit DIebler moment there, two misses in a row. Luckily Michigan has gone cold of late as well.

Turner hits the three. Time to put this one away. Oops, never mind. Need to stay focused on D.

Alabama up on Kentucky early, not going to get my hopes up on that one.

Getting sloppy again. Why can't we just be consistent DAMNIT!

Buford follows his own shot and makes it a three point play. Please, please just play consistent for the last eight minutes Buckeyes. And they aren't listening so far going into another commercial break. 54-45 good guys.

Lauderdale with his fourth foul, he has been absolutely non-existent this game because of foul trouble. Too late in this game, but he needs to get his act together if Ohio State is going to make runs in these tournaments.

Up by 6 with 6 to go. Bleh.

This is ridiculous. No call there on the Turner drive.

Buford steps out on the drive but don't call it, Big Ten refs sucks no matter who you root for.

Alright time for me to leave the room.

Okay, I am back, we are down by two with two seconds left.

Turner hits the three to win with under a second. Holy shit. Amazing game. Have a nice day everyone.

Oh, and before I go, player of the year anyone?

Michigan GameThread: Big Ten Tournament Edition

2010-03-12T16:00:52Z

Terry Gilliam - AP

Get hot and hit these suckers, Diebs!. (AP Photo/Terry Gilliam)

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Welcome to what will hopefully be the first of several Buckeye gamethreads this weekend!

If you're interested in learning more about this Michigan team, and the Buckeyes previous meetings with them, check out our previous pregame and post game articles!

Pregame: Game1, Game 2

Recap: Game 1, Game 2

Ohio State and Michigan split their games during the season. Don't forget, though, that the Wolverines pulled out the win while Evan Turner was still riding the pine. The Buckeyes have a chance here to literally end Michigan's season (that would be 2 sports in the same academic year!) as a measure of revenge for that loss.

Here are some things to watch for:

Does Matta dip further into his bench with the prospect of having to keep his players fresh for a potential 2 more games?
Does Dallas Lauderdale take care of business down low on defense like he did the last time against Michigan?
Will Jon Diebler ever find his consistent shot again? (As I said, probably in the NCAA Tournament)
Do Harris and Sims show up for this one? They were noticeably absent in the previous game.
Will the Buckeyes be able to get up for this one? Michigan has challenged them the last two times, it shouldn't be hard for them to expect to have to play.

Enjoy the game!

Go Bucks!

tBBC Film Room: QB Decision Making

2010-03-12T13:00:21Z

Every situation comes with it's own unique choices, it's up to the QB to make snap judgments and deliver the football.

A quarterback's ability to make the best, quick decisions under pressure is what separates the great ones from the mediocre.

Big Ten Tournament: Day 1 Recap

2010-03-12T02:25:13Z

More photos » John Beale - AP

This has to be how Ed DeChellis felt after the crushing loss to Minnesota. (AP Photo/John Beale)

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That wraps up the first day of games in the Big Ten Tournament. Overall, the games did not live up to their billing. It was expected coming into the day that Indiana and Penn State would give their opponents a severe fight in an attempt to continue their seasons. Indiana did make Northwesterns' lives miserable briefly, but weren't able to hold on and ended up getting blown out in the end. Here's how the games finished.

Michigan defeats Iowa 59-52.

As close as the score appears, the actual game never really seemed that close. Michigan jumped out to a big lead and simply kept Iowa completely out of their game in the first half. At the beginning of the second, Iowa began to close the lead as Michigan shot a horrendous 2-12 over the first 8 minutes. Eventually, Michigan got things going and began to improve their lead again, but in a fit of desperation Iowa managed to close the gap to 5 at 57-52 with a minute left. On their last worthwhile possession, Iowa tried desperately to get the ball to drop and were unable to find the bottom of the basket on 4 separate shot attempts. Michigan walked away with the victory, having never really been challenged.

Iowa ends their season with a 10-22 record, with a 4-14 record in conference.

Michigan will next face Ohio State at Noon tomorrow.

The other recaps come below the break.

Northwestern beats Indiana 73-58

This time the score is a complete lie. Northwestern did not manage to take the lead until the middle of the second half when they matched Indiana at 45. To that point, the game had been entirely Indiana's with them, even holding a 43-36 lead and believing that they were going to run away with this. Northwestern, however, had other ideas as they forced Indiana into an almost 6 minute scoring drought that took the Hoosier's completely out of their game. The Wildcats outscored Indiana 34-13 over the last 13 minutes of the game to take the win.

Indiana ends their season 10-21 overall, 4-14 in the Big Ten.

Northwestern takes on Purdue next, with that game occurring tomorrow at 6:30 PM Eastern Time.

Minnesota destroys Penn State 76-55

The Nittany Lions came into the game as heavily favored to pull the upset over the #6 Gophers. By the end of the game, the entire idea of that upset was considered nothing more than a bad joke. Penn State Managed to keep the game close over the first 8 minutes of the game, but after that it was all Minnesota as the basket was simply closed to the Nittany Lions all night. Penn State shot a horrendous 32.4% from the field and 21.4% from beyond the arc against Minnesota's 54.1% and 46.7% respectively. Those kinds of numbers simply won't get it done. The Nittany Lions tried very hard to close the gap to the very end of the game - give them lots of credit for having the heart to keep playing hard while staring the end of their season in the face. Unfortunately, it was far too little way too late.

Penn State finishes at the bottom of the conference with a 3-16 record, 11-19 overall.

Minnesota faces a Chris Allen-less Michigan State team tomorrow in the late game (Approx. 9 PM start time).

We'll have a Buckeye GameThread open tomorrow for the game against Michigan, and an OpenThread for the rest of the games following that. Hope to see you guys there!

Big Ten Tournament Day 1 OpenThread

2010-03-11T18:00:35Z

More photos » Charles Cherney - AP

"Will the NCAA Tournament ever love us?" thinks Bill Carmody. Northwestern has a chance for their first ever NCAA Tournament appearance if they have a good showing in the Big Ten Tournament (read: Win it all). (AP Photo/Charles Cherney)

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Here's the first of 4 Big Ten Tournament OpenThreads!

We have an interesting lineup of games in store for you, and two of them are even on ESPN2! ...Of course, those are the early games when nearly everyone will be working...

I'll also give you the links to the SB Nation partners, in case you're interested in grabbing further information about those games. The first one is the most relevant to Buckeye fans, as the winner will move on to face the Buckeyes in the 2nd round.

Game 1: 2:30 PM Eastern Time, ESPN2

#8 Michigan Wolverines - Maize n Brew

#9 Iowa Hawkeyes - Black Heart Gold Pants

Game 2: 25 Minutes following the end of Game 1 (Approx. 5 PM), ESPN2

#7 Northwestern Wildcats - Sippin' on Purple

#10 Indiana Hoosiers - The Crimson Quarry

Game 3: 7:30 PM Eastern Time, Big Ten Network

#6 Minnesota Golden Gophers - The Daily Gopher

#11 Penn State Nittany Lions - Black Shoe Diaries

So grab a drink, put up your feet and stay a while. There's lots of good basketball to be played!

tBBC Playlist - Jim Carroll Band

2010-03-11T03:08:52Z

We haven't broken out this feature for a while (and with the B10/NCAA Tourneys coming, we wont have space for it for a while), so tonight is a good night to jam out.

In honor of Corey Haim, and since it's apparently 80s day here at tBBC, we bring you The Jim Carroll Band with one of my favorite 80s tunes "People Who Died"

Classic tune.

If you ever saw "The Basketball Diaries" with Leonardo DiCaprio, that was the story of Jim Carroll. It was a great movie about a true poet. Check it out if you haven't already.

Poll

People Who Died

Oregon QB Jeremiah Masoli charged with theft

2010-03-11T02:55:16Z

Oregon QB Jeremiah Masoli charged with theft

Reality - Masoli was charged with theft from an incident in January at a fraternity house.

What Oregon fans will say - Those Oregon prosecutors are going to be shocked when this comes to trial. They've never seen speed like this before. The case will be over by halftime.

Big Ten Tournament Preview

2010-03-10T19:01:41Z

More photos » Terry Gilliam - AP

It's time to find out who get's to hoist the other Big Ten Trophy. (AP Photo/Terry Gilliam)

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Tomorrow at 2:30 begins the last ditch effort for several teams to continue to play basketball for the season. Some of the unfortunate ones may get lucky and see the floor during the NIT, but we all know that there are no points for second place. Everyone who's not already punched their ticket for the tournament knows that this is their last chance to do it. They've just gotta win 4 games in as many days against very stiff competition.

You just have to love March!

As Big Ten Tournament fields go, this has to be one of the deepest in recent memory. In this article, I'm going to try to convince you that the team I've picked to win will manage it. Let's be clear though, I could probably concoct a reasonable argument for 11 seeded Penn State to pull this one out in the end. That should give you a pretty fair idea of the mental wrestling I've played with this bracket. Just trust me, though, you do not want to take this to Vegas because as far as I can see right this very moment, anything can happen.

Oh, and apparently it's 80's week at tBBC. Who knew?

Games of Thursday, March 11

#8 Michigan vs. #9 Iowa: 2:30 PM Eastern Time - The first game of the tournament pits the 9 seeded Iowa Hawkeyes against the 8 seeded Michigan Wolverines. These two have faced each other twice during the season with Michigan winning both games, though Iowa almost pulled out the most recent at home falling by only 2. The Hawkeyes have not done well to close out the season, going 2-9 over their last 11 games with wins over Northwestern (at home) and Indiana (at home). Michigan, too, has suffered greatly towards the end of the season going 4-7 over their last 11 including 2 wins over Minnesota - the most recent in blowout fashion (83-55).

The Hawkeyes have been struggling greatly all season long, and Michigan is in much better position to secure the win.

The Call: Michigan

#7 Northwestern vs. #10 Indiana: Approx. 5 PM Eastern Time - This is going to be one of the most interesting games of the tournament. The wheels on Northwestern's first-ever NCAA Tournament bid have completely fallen off with a pair of losses to Penn State, and losses to Iowa and Indiana (in overtime). The Indiana loss in particular occurred just down the street in Bloomington and only about 5 days ago. Indiana, on the other hand, lost 11 straight - including a 78-61 loss to Northwestern - before that upset over Northwestern. That win has to have given Indiana a lot of confidence coming into the tournament and it will show.

However, Northwestern has a lot more to gain than Indiana does and they're going to be gunning for revenge after that loss in Bloomington. Expect Northwestern to come out fired up and ready to end the Hoosiers' season.

The Call: Northwestern

#6 Minnesota vs. #11 Penn State: 7:30 PM Eastern Time - I'm not sure why I'm going to bother writing anything about this game at all. Minnesota has been hot and cold all year long, including a couple of devastating blowout losses to Ohio State and Michigan, with the one to Michigan coming just about a week ago. Penn State had a rough start to their conference play, losing 12 straight until finally beating Northwestern (twice) and Michigan. They lost 3 of their last 6 to Ohio State, Michigan State and Purdue, and the last two were by a combined 6 points.

Expect Penn State to be a very dangerous competitor in this tournament. They've been awfully close to pulling out victories this year and it's only a matter of time before they finally do.

The Call: Penn State

Games of Friday, March 12^th

#8 Michigan vs. #1 Ohio State: 12:00 PM Eastern Time - After starting 1-3 the Buckeyes have been red hot going 13-1 through the remainder of the Big Ten. Michigan split their games with the Buckeyes and looked like they had a shot in the game in Columbus but the Bucks ran away with it. If Michigan can get their 3 point shooters going Ohio State could be in trouble, but that simply won't happen. Michigan has completely sucked from beyond the arc - except finding some luck against the Buckeyes.

We'll see what happens, but with a 9 day layover, you can bet the Buckeyes are going to be ready to play.

The Call: Ohio State

#4 Wisconsin vs. #5 Illinois: Approx. 2:30 PM Eastern Time - Another interesting matchup in the lineup. Wisconsin looks for a bit more revenge against the Illinois team that brought them their first loss at home to an unranked Big Ten team during Bo Ryan's tenure. The Badgers already tasted some of that revenge in a win over the Illini in Champaign a couple days ago. Illinois also had an outside shot at winning the conference this year, but was unable to pull together the victories with crushing losses to Ohio State and Purdue, along with a tough 2 point loss to Minnesota.

Don't expect the Illini to amount to much in this one. Wisconsin's grind-it-out style is tough to beat in the tournament.

The Call: Wisconsin

#2 Purdue vs. #7 Northwestern: 6:30 PM Eastern Time - Purdue is quite an enigma coming into this tournament. With Robbie Hummel the Boilers are damn near unstoppable. Without him, they're a very good team missing a critical element. Will Northwestern be able to stop the Boilermakers and give the Selection committee something more to question? Almost certainly not with the way Northwestern has been playing basketball lately. Purdue will walk away with this one.

The Call: Purdue

#3 Michigan State vs. #11 Penn State: Approx. 9 PM Eastern Time - Michigan State could very well be in trouble in this game. After going undefeated for the first 10 games of their conference slate they ran into some difficulty on a three game losing skid. MSU promptly managed to bounce back and only dropped one more game (to the Buckeyes) in closing out the season. There's a major problem, though: Chris Allen, Sparty's best defender at the guard spot, has been suspended for the game and possibly more. Allen was the man that Coach Tom Izzo went to to defend PSU's Talor Battle in both of the matchups this season. Allen didn't exactly do a spectacular job, but considering you can't really stop Battle Allen certainly held his own.

This comes down to how much the loss of Allen hurts Sparty, along with how hot Penn State comes into the tournament. Here's the surprise: considering how Sparty usually plays in the post season, and the fact that Penn State has been close in a LOT of these matchups, I'm going to give it to the Nits.

The Call: Penn State

Games of Saturday, March 13^th

#1 Ohio State vs. #4 Wisconsin: 1:30 PM Eastern Time - The Buckeyes and Badgers split their meetings during the season, each winning at home in a big way. The primary difference, however, was that the Buckeyes lacked Evan Turner for the first meeting when Wisconsin won. The difference in offensive capability very likely hampered the Buckeyes against the slow-it-down style of Wisconsin. You can expect Wisconsin will try to grind it out to the bitter end. Having played a game the previous day with a severe lack of depth might hurt the Buckeyes, but there are few teams better conditioned than this one.

The Buckeyes will escape with a close, hard fought win.

The Call: Ohio State

#2 Purdue vs. #11 Penn State: Approx. 4:00 PM Eastern Time - Here's where things get very interesting. If Penn State makes it this far, they will have played 2 straight games, along with having to be completely on fire to take out Michigan State. Considering Robbie Hummel is not playing, and Penn State almost caught Purdue off-guard in their last matchup, can the Nits pull out the victory?

I think the answer depends a lot more on Purdue than on PSU. If PSU makes it this far, you know they'll believe they can go the whole way. If Purdue struggles against Northwestern, they may not have the emotional drive to push through this one. If, however, Purdue destroys the Wildcats then Penn State might be able to overcome a surging, motivated Boilermaker team.

The Call: Purdue

The Big Ten Championship Game, Sunday, March 14^th

#1 Ohio State vs. #2 Purdue: 3:30 PM Eastern Time - If both of these teams make it this far (no guarantee for either one) it's going to make for quite the scrum in the championship. Every recalls that in the last game, the Buckeyes lost by 3 after missing a last-chance three pointer from a wide open Jon Diebler. That was with Robbie Hummel still playing. This game would not include the awesome Boiler star. The question here would be how much losing Hummel will have affected the Boiler basketball team. The answer seems to be "quite a bit". KenPom currently has the Boiler's with an Offensive Efficiency of 111.9 and a Defensive Efficiency of 86.1. Those numbers are calculated for the full year and represent the numbers of points scored by Purdue and against Purdue on average in 100 possessions.

If you calculate the OE and DE using KenPom's formulae for Purdue over their 3 games without Hummel, you find that Purdue has a mere 94.8 OE and 85.8 DE. Consider also that Purdue played Michigan State, Indiana and Penn State over their last 3. Indiana is not exactly a world beater, and Penn State still hasn't quite gotten over the hump against top ranked teams. A reduction of about 17 points per 100 possessions is a huge swing for a ball club. On KenPom's list, an OE of 94.8 ranks 268 out of 349 basketball teams. Think about that for a minute. Purdue's offense without Hummel is rating the same as North Dakota State.

Now, I recognize that 3 games do not constitute a statistically large sampling size and so these results should be taken with a very large grain of salt. Purdue has had a chance to practice and play without Hummel and should be better able to win without him. After running that calculation, I strongly considered taking Northwestern over Purdue. However, I think Purdue is much more capable than those numbers suggest - leading to what I suspect will be an appearance in the championship game.

However, I do not believe the loss to Michigan State was a fluke, nor do I believe Purdue will be able to beat any one of Wisconsin, Ohio State or MSU in the tournament. Therefore, my conference tournament champion becomes...

The Call: Ohio State

Here's the bracket in all of its glory.

It's going to be a great tournament all around and I look forward to seeing how it all turns out. For those interested, we'll be running OpenThreads each day of the tournament for all the games, and then an additional Thread each day specifically for the Ohio State games. Stop on by and chill with us if you're watching the tournament!

Way too early discussion of the NCAA Tournament

2010-03-10T02:00:23Z

More photos » Terry Gilliam - AP

Will there be more hardware kissing this year? (AP Photo/Terry Gilliam)

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Wait, NCAA Tournament? Why are we talking about that when there's another important Tournament looming right around the corner? Well, my faithful reader, it's quite simple. We are here to discuss all of those things on which the Big Ten Tournament may effect, both for Ohio State and the greater Big Ten as a whole. We'll get to the more important questions regarding the Big Ten Tournament itself tomorrow.

There are a couple questions we want to answer here today so we'll hit each of them in turn starting from the relatively least important to the most important. If there are any questions that you, the reader, have, feel free to ask and we shall answer to the best of our ability. So bang a gong, let's get it on!

Oh the 80's hair...it's everywhere...

How many teams will the Big Ten get into the Tournament?

I have bad news for you Big Ten Fans. Despite the fact that at the very beginning of the season I claimed that this was the best conference top to bottom and that this conference had eleven fantastic coaches, the Big Ten is getting screwed. Joe Lunardi's Bracketology only has 5 teams from the conference in the tournament (Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Illinois)*. Minnesota still clearly has work to do, and a couple wins in the Tournament might help them, but as we'll discuss later it probably won't. Illinois is hit or miss whether they'll actually make it in, currently sitting at 13 and one of the last 4 in.

You should also check out this excellent page called the "Bracket Project" which aims to get an accurate prediction of the tournament Bracket by averaging 76 separate Brackets available around the internet. They also have 4 Big Ten teams in the Tournament, although Illinois is very close to getting in, sitting at the top of the First 4 Out. A win over Wisconsin might be enough to edge them back into the tournament.

Lets look at Illinois' and Minnesota's resumes:

	Record	Conf.	RPI	SOS	Good Wins	Bad Losses
Illinois	18-13	10-8	75	41	at Wisconsin, at Clemson, Vanderbilt, Michigan State	Utah, Bradley, Northwestern
Minnesota	18-12	9-9	78	55	Butler (NC), Ohio State, Wisconsin, at Illinois	at Indiana, at Miami (FL), at Michigan, at Northwestern, Michigan

It's pretty clear why these two teams are on the Bubble - although you might even say that you're surprised Minnesota even has a shot. Those bad losses for Minny are horrendous - especially Indiana who has a sub-200 RPI. Illinois in fact probably doesn't even deserve to have Bradley as a bad loss, as Bradley is sitting right on the border with an RPI of 100.

If Illinois can take out Wisconsin on Friday, which is entirely possible since they already managed to beat Wisconsin in Wisconsin (despite what I may actually think), they should have enough to sneak into the tournament as a 9 or 10 seed. Minnesota is flat out, there is nothing they are going to be able to do to overcome that resume sans winning the whole Big Ten Tournament.

Does Ohio State deserve a 1-seed?

Here comes a very loaded question. An awful lot of TV prognosticators have been discussing this point endlessly. They've brought up all sorts of statistics as to who might deserve the last one seed alongside Syracuse, Kentucky and Kansas who - obviously - deserve a 1-seed themselves. But do the Buckeyes really deserve one?

Absolutely not. In fact, I don't believe the Buckeyes should be in the discussion.

Want to know why? There are several reasons.

First: The Ohio State RPI and SOS are abysmal

Let's do the resume comparison for all of the top 10 teams in the Coaches poll right this very moment in no particular order with their names removed.

Team	Record	Conf.	RPI	SOS	Good Wins	Bad Losses
1	26-5	13-3	2	7	3	1
2	23-6	11-5	6	5	4	1
3	28-3	14-2	7	64	4	1
4	26-4	14-4	12	52	5	1
5	24-6	13-5	9	24	3	0
6	29-2	15-1	1	8	7	0
7	29-2	14-2	3	38	3	0
8	24-7	14-4	30	67	4	1
9	28-3	15-3	4	11	5	0
10	24-6	13-5	5	2	5	0

Which of these ten teams would you put as the 1 seeds? You might guess, based upon records and quantity of good and bad wins that teams 6, 7, 9, and 1 would be your choices. You might also go so far as to laugh at teams 3, 4, and 8 even thinking about deserving a #1 seed. Here's how you would have chosen:

1 Seeds: Kansas (6), Kentucky (7), Syracuse (9), Duke (1).

Laughed at: New Mexico (3), Purdue (4), Ohio State (8).

The Rest: Kansas State (2), Villanova (5), West Virginia (10).

Perhaps "laughing at" is pushing it a little. Purdue has an excellent resume (despite the strength of schedule) and they have beaten 5 teams with an RPI of 50 or greater. But it's fairly clear from the numbers who really deserves the 1 seeds.

Second: The Big Ten Tournament won't help at all

One of the worst myths perpetrated on Big Ten fans (and the fans of most conferences that have their championship game on Selection Sunday) is that winning the Big Ten tournament will have a big effect on your seeding. It seems like every single year a Big Ten team comes in with high aspirations of a #1 seed despite sitting outside of the top 4 or 5 in the discussions for one. When they do, the fan base gets into a tizzy about that guaranteed one seed if they win. How many times have their dreams actually managed to come true?

Exactly never.

More often than not the Tournament selection committee has the entire bracket figured out by time midday Sunday rolls around with maybe a couple open questions. One or two games is not enough to drastically change the body of work you've had for the entire season in their eyes, and so they finish up with the bracket before all the games are finished playing.

But what if Minnesota, Penn State, Northwestern..(etc. etc.) make the tournament championship? They wouldn't set the bracket before that game has finished, would they? Actually they would, and they have. The few times that a bubble team (or, better yet a team entirely outside tournament discussion) makes the Big Ten Tourney championship, the selection committee has created 2 brackets: one for if that team wins, and one for if they lose. Saves them a whole lot of grief trying to arrange the whole bracket in the hour before they have to turn it in were they to wait until after the game ends.

The long and the short of this discussion is that the Buckeyes are currently sitting as a low two seed in most bracket writer's eyes - including Lunardi's most recent Bracketology. Given everything above, I have no reason to believe they will be anywhere else come Sunday night.

How much is depth going to hurt the Buckeyes?

This is a very interesting question. Several times in gamethreads during the season, KenK and I (along with several others) would lament the fact that Thad Matta had seemed to forget Jeremie Simmons and PJ Hill late in not-so-close games. In fact, in several games, we were left confused by the fact that only 6 players had ever seen the court during the game. Were the Buckeyes setting themselves up to suffer Texas' Garrett Gilbert disease?

Of course, we're not necessarily saying that the Bucks were going to make the National Title. The point of Garrett Gilbert disease is that you neglect developing your backups during the course of the season, including during blowout wins, for whatever odd reason is in your head and then suffer a devesating fall when your starter gets hurt. To be fair, Garrett Gilbert did see the field on 8 separate occasions, but only for very limited time and long after he probably should've seen gametime.

After one of those 6 player deep games I posed the question to a very good friend of mine, Jay, who had some High School Basketball experience. Jay had some interesting things to say:

You aren't necessarily going to gain a "new element" by bringing in a sub. For example, Hill and Simmons are both strong defenders, but probably neither is as good as the four you already have out there. You wouldn't be bringing in your "defensive stopper" off the bench the way that some teams do with their sixth man. In the same way, neither is as good a shooter/scorer as the four you already have in there, especially now that Lighty is scoring consistently. You could argue that Simmons is just as much a scorer as Lighty or Diebler, but again, you're giving up some defense by making that switch. I think it basically comes down to putting your strongest lineup on the floor. With all those guys being in the 6'5-6'7 range, why bring in someone smaller who isn't going to present as much of a problem for the opponent?

Good question. This gets at the heart of why PJ Hill and Jeremie Simmons aren't getting as much time as they used to, especially during the important parts of the game. But then, why wouldn't we bring them in at the end during mop up duty as well? Well, actually, it may surprise you to learn that we did! Jeremie Simmons only failed to play in 3 games during the season: the home games against Iowa and Purdue, and at Michigan State. He hasn't played a lot the last few weeks, but he has logged more than a few minutes here and there. PJ Hill, on the other hand, hasn't seen many minutes since Evan Turner returned from injury. He's played only 22 minutes since the West Virginia game - a span of 11 games.

Jay continues:

Obviously the main argument against running your starters for 40 minutes is fatigue. Defense and shooting can quickly diminish if the players are tired. I think the reason this hasn't come to the surface too much is because 1) these players are so well conditioned that they are capable of playing 40 minutes and 2) seriously, there are so many timeouts over the course of the game that fatigue is addressed without having to sub. Yes, TV timeouts allow coaches to play their starters the whole game.

My freshman year in high school our team went to the state Final Four, and our coach employed this same strategy. He played the starters the whole game for some games, and in the games where he did use a sub he only used one guy and that guy only played a couple minutes. In the 90's UCLA won the national championship playing 6 guys in the final game (I think one of their bench players got injured either pre-tournament or during the tournament). So the strategy can work, but you're always taking your chances with potential foul trouble. My comments about the fatigue factor could also be negated if the other team goes 8 deep and keeps the pressure on the whole game. In that type of scenario even the TV timeouts won't save you. In fact, I expect this will be our undoing in the tournament. The question is just whether or not giving Simmons and Hill more playing time earlier in the season would result in a different outcome (that is, allow us to win the game).

In fact, the UCLA player was Senior Point Guard Tyus Edney, who scored the game winning layup against Missouri to keep UCLA in the tournament and on their way to their first championship in 20 years. I can't confirm that they only played 6 players, but I can confirm that the Arkansas team they beat for the Championship was known for their patented defensive pressure often called "40 minutes of hell". Sounds like the kind of defense Jay was talking about when referring to how to kill a team that only goes 6 deep.

Depth hasn't been a huge issue so far this year. The Buckeyes look to be extremely well conditioned and are playing well even late in close ball games. However, I have to agree with Jay's assessment that our depth is probably going to hurt us at some point in the tournament - especially if we end up in the Big Ten championship game. Three straight days of basketball is going to take a lot out of this team. That said, I don't think there's a set of 5 players in the entire country I'd rather have try to run for 40 minutes at a stretch.

Swing by tomorrow for a look at my Big Ten Tournament predictions. If you haven't had a chance yet, go check out Malibuckeye's Tournament Challenge post and sign up to take us on for bragging rights. I bet you can't build a better bracket than I can!

*Corrected based on the most recent brackets.

The BBC will be streaming EVERY tournament game LIVE

2010-03-09T23:43:48Z

Call today a special day here at the BBC. It's a day of getting excited for the NCAA Tournament and we've got all the great news.

MaliBuckeye gave you the news a few hours ago aboutthe NCAA Bracket Challenge we're hosting here at tBBC. Go sign up for an account and get ready to select your bracket. I'm going to be upping the ante and adding prizes before the Dance begins.

But now it's time for the big announcement. CBS Sports will be providing The Buckeye Battle Cry with a stand-alone player that will be streaming LIVE every single game in the NCAA Tournament.

Got a job that requires you to actually show up on Thursday and Friday next week?
Live outside of the great state of Ohio, but still want to see the Buckeyes?
Want to keep a close eye on Siena and make sure they lose before they get to us?
Got a bracket-buster playing outside your region and want to keep tabs on them?

The Buckeye Battle cry can help! We'll be providing the media player sometime next week, and it will be free to all our readers. So relax....you're going to get to see your favorite team live on this very site!

We'll give you more details as we get them.

tBBC Tournament Challenge

2010-03-09T20:22:34Z

More photos » Terry Gilliam - AP

Goin' Dancing!! (AP Photo/Terry Gilliam)

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It's time for the Buckeye Battle Cry's inaugural March Madness competition!

It seems that around this time every year, we look for answers to the deep questions of life, such as:

Will Thad, Evan, Threebler be able to progress deep into the tourney after not going deep into their bench all season?
Will the loss of Titus be the emotional glue that pulls the team together, like when that guy who's on Sons of Anarchy was in a car crash at the end of Remember the Titans and it kept him from going to Ohio State but inspired them to win the state title?
Will this be the year that a 16 upsets a 1 seed? Will someone explain to me if it's "cede" or "seed", and why?
Will Kentucky's youth be their downfall? Will UK be on probation within one year or two of Calipari's tenure?
Will Eric be able to post coherent summaries of each game in under 5 minutes of completion? One of the few times where finishing fast is a virtue...
How many of our male tBBC readers will be making "extra efforts" in order to stay at home and watch the first round games?
How far will the Lady Buckeyes go in their tournament dance?
Which bracket strategy will be most successful- "Mascots in a fight", "Favorite colors", or "I knew someone who went there..."?
and, most importantly- Who will have bragging rights for one year's worth of live chats?

This year's winner will receive their choice of a t shirt from tBBC store (shameless plug), as well as the opportunity to rule over tBBC as "Smartest picker of them all".

We've partnered with our friends at CBS Sports for this year's bracket; if you don't have an account with them, you'll need to sign up.

Our official website is: http://tbbcbracket.mayhem.cbssports.com/e

The password is: titus34

Good luck, and Go Bucks!!

Evan Turner named Big Ten POY, Thad Matta gets Coach of Year honors

2010-03-09T01:21:37Z

More photos » Terry Gilliam - AP

Oh yeah. I'm the king. (AP Photo/Terry Gilliam)

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No, it's not the national awards, but the news just broke....Evan Turner and Thad Matta have picked up top honors in the Big Ten.

According to OhioStateBuckeyes.com;

The Big Ten Conference office announced on Monday the 2010 All-Big Ten men's basketball teams and individual award winners. Ohio State's Evan Turner captured the conference's highest honor, as he was named Big Ten Player of the Year in voting by conference coaches and media.

Turner's selection was unanimous.

It better have been....

Men's Big Ten Tournament and Jon Diebler

2010-03-08T19:37:03Z

More photos » Terry Gilliam - AP

One goal down, this many more to go! Potential National and Big Ten Player of the Year Evan Turner is excited for postseason play. (AP Photo/Terry Gilliam)

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After taking a break to enjoy CK's coverage of the Women's Big Ten tournament I'm back to provide you all of the Men's Basketball coverage you can possibly stand. But first: Congratulations to the Women's team for winning the regular season and tournament for the second year running. That is a singularly impressive feat and really goes to emphasize just how much Jim Foster has started to dominate in the Big Ten. Now if only he could translate that to deep runs into the NCAA Tournament and this team would stand with the likes of Connecticut, and Tennessee.

Ok, maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but you get the point.

We're finally into March, the month of "Win or go home". Suddenly, every single game is incredibly exciting, though few will match the epic clash of titans that was last year's 6 overtime slugfest between Syracuse and Connecticut. Most of the games will feel about this good, though, as everyone attempts to play to survive. This Thursday's games in the Big Ten in particular should be very interesting.

The Men's Basketball Tournament starts in Indy on Thursday with a couple of solid matchups to whet our appetite for post-season play. The Bracket shakes out like this:

Courtesy of the Big Ten.

The Buckeye's first game looks interesting and winnable. Either we get a weak Iowa team or a Michigan team that just got cold-clocked by Michigan State's bench players. Unfortunately, if we win we get to follow that up with a matchup against Wisconsin (no, Illinois will not beat Wisconsin) which quite honestly could go either way. I would love to see us smack Bo Ryan in the mouth repeatedly, but I'm not going to get my hopes up - Wisconsin is a tough team to beat.

The other half of the bracket shapes up quite favorably for Michigan State. Granted, their first game could turn out to be a disaster considering Penn State shoots the three extremely well and Minnesota is very well coached. Especially problematic will be those team's desperate desires to make the NCAA tournament which will make them tough to handle, but Izzo should be able to keep them afloat in that one. The next game might be easier considering they would face one of: Purdue (sans Hummel) who MSU already beat once in the last week or so, Northwestern who will definitely be surging for their first NCAA bid ever, or Indiana who isn't your father's Indiana (obviously).

The Thursday games will be very entertaining to watch. Obviously all of the teams playing that day are desperate to improve their image in the eyes of the NCAA Tournament committee, which is true every single year. What's new this year is that several teams have a legitimate shot of making the tournament - including Northwestern for the first time - while their opponents are actually a legitimate threat. Minnesota/Penn State looks like it will be a very enjoyable game to watch.

During the course of the tournament, I'll give daily updates and summaries of the various games. I won't be doing a full recap of Friday's Ohio State game considering it's at noon but you can expect some if the Buckeyes keep winning. We will also run openthreads for the full day, along with an open thread for each individual OSU game. Should be a fun filled time!

Dammit Diebler!

There has been a lot of discussion on OSU message boards and in blog posts about Jon Diebler and his effectiveness so far this year. If you've been reading this blog consistently over the last couple months you'll have noticed that I've regularly referred to Diebler as being a maddeningly* inconsistent shooter. In fact, the GameThreads show a similar trend in quantities of "Dammit Diebler" versus "Threebler!" comments suggesting a wildly held belief that Diebler is quite inconsistent. Some people aren't in agreement with that perception and make the argument that his shooting either depends on the opposing defense, or depends on how many shots Diebler decides to take.

Look, everyone knows that three point shooting is a difficult skill set. Quite honestly, Diebler is just about as close to a sure shot as you can get from three without looking at the NBA. That doesn't mean, however, that he's not insanely inconsistent. I'm not about to make that claim without something to back me up, and if you know me well enough you know I'm gonna pull out some numbers.

BAM. That would be a graph with lots of data. Red represents the number of 3 point attempts Diebler made in each game. Blue is a funny representation of percentage so that the fluctuations appear on the graph properly - it actually represents the number of hits out of every 10 attempts, rather than out of 100. The gold is KenPom's adjusted defensive statistics for all of the OSU opponents as of Saturday morning - the lower the number, the better the defense with about 8.4 being the lowest and 12.0 as his highest. What I want to do is look to see if there is any sort of correlation between Diebler's shooting percentage and the defensive quality of the OSU opponents.

A couple of things I want to point out about this. First, Ken Pomeroy's defensive statistics include all aspects of each team's defensive ability. Therefore, the use of this stat is a little shady in that a team could be very good defending in the paint but terrible on the perimeter and have a very good defensive score and vice versa. The assumption that I've made is that it's unlikely that a very good defensive team would not be good beyond the arc, and a poor defensive team is unlikely to be great defending beyond the arc. Also note that game seven is Florida State, who at the time had the best defense in the country according to Ken Pom.

Second, the addition of the plot of attempts should give a sense for how good the team was at defending the three. The logic being that Diebler is only taking reasonably open shots and passing on shooting if the shot isn't there - in other words, he's making good decisions. Having watched him play this season this isn't much of a stretch. Diebler generally takes very good shots, and is often shooting off a play designed to get him the ball while open. If he comes around to take the pass with a defender pasted on him, that's a sign of good defense and the Buckeyes are going to not run that play very often - deflating Diebler's attempt numbers.

Early in the season, Diebler's numbers actually follow almost perfectly with the defensive ability of the opponents. As the defensive ratings drop (better defenses) the shooting percentage should drop too. Through the first 15 games, Diebler's numbers fluctuate in a very consistent manner suggesting he's shooting in a consistent way. The last half of the season (all big ten games) Diebler's numbers fluctuate wildly with no correlation with the defensive ability of the teams involved suggesting a very inconsistent streak.

You can argue that this has a lot to do with the nature of the Big Ten teams "knowing" the other Big Ten teams particularly well and taking advantage of the various weaknesses. There's a lot of merit to that argument given the results of this plot. The consistency Diebler exhibits early in the season lends weight to the idea that his numbers are strongly dependent on how good the opposing defense really is and not dependent on any sort of prior knowledge of the team before the game (beyond typical preparation). The lack of correlation during the Big Ten season would definitely suggest that Ohio State and their opponents are playing a cat and mouse game based on prior first-hand knowledge with mixed results.

Long story short, I don't think calling Diebler inconsistent over the last half of the year is an incorrect statement. Towards the end of the season he has clearly been wildly inconsistent on a game to game basis. However, the reason for that inconsistency was not really clear until you really consider the data. Given the answer, it will be interesting to see what happens during the course of the NCAA tournament and if Diebler's statistics return to his early season consistency.

* Is it simply coincidence that this word is spelled like John Madden? Just a thought.

The Buckeye Battle Cry

Big Ten Tournament Day 3 OpenThread

Buckeyes advance to Big Ten Championship game, beating Illinois 88-81 in double OT

Illinois GameThread: Big Ten Tournament Edition

Big Ten Tournament: Day 2 Recap

Oregon suspends QB Masoli for 2010 season

Oregon suspends QB Masoli for 2010 season

"The Shot" - here's the video

Big Ten Tournament Day 2 OpenThread

Turner's last second three lifts Buckeyes past tsun: 69-68

Second Half

Michigan GameThread: Big Ten Tournament Edition

tBBC Film Room: QB Decision Making

Big Ten Tournament: Day 1 Recap

Big Ten Tournament Day 1 OpenThread

tBBC Playlist - Jim Carroll Band

People Who Died

Oregon QB Jeremiah Masoli charged with theft

Oregon QB Jeremiah Masoli charged with theft

Big Ten Tournament Preview

Games of Thursday, March 11

Games of Friday, March 12th

Games of Saturday, March 13th

The Big Ten Championship Game, Sunday, March 14th

Way too early discussion of the NCAA Tournament

How many teams will the Big Ten get into the Tournament?

Does Ohio State deserve a 1-seed?

How much is depth going to hurt the Buckeyes?

The BBC will be streaming EVERY tournament game LIVE

tBBC Tournament Challenge

Evan Turner named Big Ten POY, Thad Matta gets Coach of Year honors

Men's Big Ten Tournament and Jon Diebler

Dammit Diebler!

Games of Friday, March 12^th

Games of Saturday, March 13^th

The Big Ten Championship Game, Sunday, March 14^th