Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Ohio State 66 Michigan State 64

As part of my trip to Columbus we took in a basketball game featuring the 5th ranked Ohio State Buckeyes and the Michigan State Spartans.
Two big reasons for my interest: my wager on the Buckeyes to win it all and the presence of one of the most promising freshman to hit college in years, Greg Oden.

Ohio State got off to an early lead by feeding Greg Oden. He hit two hook shots and a couple other shots, had OSU's first 7 and 9 of their first 15. But then he sort of disappeared on offense, he had no field goals in the last 33 minutes of the game. He sat for long stretches, then when he came back he didn't try hard to get open. He did get fouled a few times and ended up shooting 11-14 from the line, not bad for a big man who still shoots with his off hand due to injury.

Oden's hook shot

But in the first half they didn't need Oden's offense, everyone was clicking and they had a 43-23 lead, as my man Daequan Cook nailed a 3-pointer.

Daequan Cook has sick moves

But then the game devolved into the other OSU games I've seen this season. Too many good players, only one ball and not enough effort on defense.
Led by Drew Neitzell (a cross between Mike Nardi and Kevin Leitzell), who went off scoring 24 of his 29 in the second half (one more point than the whole OSU team had in the second half), Michigan State made a furious comeback.
Ohio State had no field goals in the final 6 minutes, but hit 7 free throws to hang onto the lead.
A good close game but more exciting than what we wanted to see.

But we did get what we paid for. At one point a Michigan State player went up for a layup and Oden blocked it, but not just blocked it. He caught it. Picked it out of the sky. I loved it.

One thing I didn't love was the crowd. They clearly lacked enthusiasm, especially as compared to the football crowds. This was more like a Carrier Dome crowd. Even though it was a 9pm start on a Saturday night there weren't enough drunk students. Apparently, this is due to an SU-esque policy in which the best tickets are sold to rich old boosters and the students are stuck behind the basket. And there are no alcohol sales at the arena during college games. Those seated behind the basket did however wear red and white warmup jerseys provided by the school to create a big red O into which the opposing team had to look when shooting.

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