Sweet Sixteen - Thursday Thoughts

Very disappointed in Southern Illinois. They had a good chance to beat Kansas.

I disagreed with their strategy at the end of the game. They kept fouling giving Kansas free points. If defense is their calling card they should have had some faith in it to get them a few stops.

But the whole game changed when they missed 2 layups with the score 54-53. The difference between a 1-point lead and a 1-point deficit is huge. I'm sure somewhere their most famous alum, Clyde Frazier was screaming, "you gotta get the lead man."

Texas A&M was also victimized by a missed layup by A.C. Law Ivey. He is supposedly Mr. Clutch but he left that one a little short.

But that game was the most competitive game of the tournament so far. Memphis and Texas A&M played the whole game back and forth tied, up 2, etc. Very exciting game and I'm surprised Memphis pulled it off.

Also on further review that tipped ball with 3 seconds left, the refs made the right call to run a second off, the ball hit in bounds first, then bounced out, but took a while to hit someone, something.

And can we please stop saying how it's a huge advantage for a school to play 180 miles away just because the arena happens to be in the same state? Louisville lost in Kentucky, A&M lost in San Antonio and in 2003 Syracuse could have played Oklahoma in Kelvin Sampson's backyard and still won that game.

I saw nothing of UCLA-Pitt. I assume it was a low-scoring affair and everytime Pitt needed a basket, they couldn't get it because they stink on offense.

Now onto the new "best game so far."

Great comeback by Ohio State for the second straight game.

I also don't want to hear anything about Oden's fouls because at least 2 of them were flops, just like the one last week against Xavier that everyone wanted an intentional, the guy left his feet and jumped to draw a call on Oden.

Oden got the last laugh however by blocking the last second layup attempt.

He also got the ball more on offense than I have ever seen the guards give it to him. And he delivered making some big free throws down the stretch.

Mike Conley missed some big free throws but he was the biggest reason OSU was able to come back. He played a great game using the absence of Oden to his advantage by continually driving the lane and getting fouled.

Tennessee was unconscious from outside in the first half, even though Ohio State didn't play great defense, they were hitting everything.

But OSU never gave up, and they never started bombing away from deep as they tend to do. They slowly and methodically marched back into this one, and as so often happens, once an underdog blows a big lead, they don't have the stuff to come back.

Huge win for Ohio State.