Ohio State assistants (3) now earn more than an aggregate of One million dollars. If you want good and talented coaches, you have up the ante!
Buckeyes best Bucknell today 73-71 after a ten-day layoff due to final exams. The game see-sawed back and forth, but we managed to hang on for the win down the stretch. We are now 9-1 with two conference wins.
Irish beat Purdue today, but at a high price Sr Rex Pfleugger was injured late in the game and it looks like an ACL which ends his season / career as a Notre Dame basketball player. Dane Goodwin, freshman out of Ohio likely to be the guy who gets a big increase in playing time and responsibility going forward I was pleased with the win, we are now 7-3, with some easier games coming up before diving into ACC play.
Villanova lost again, this time to Kansas. They have really played a tough schedule. I hadn't realized how much they lost to graduation/NBA. Not really a surprise team as they had an excellent season last year, but Texas Tech has quietly become one of the better B12 programs. Their coach is a young guy you never heard of and I wonder how long he'll last at Tech. If he keeps this up some big time jobs/$$$ will be coming his direction. Keep an eye on Chris Beard.
Ohio State defeats UCLA in the CBS Sports Classic this afternoon in Chicago 80-66. Kentucky and North Carolina will play in the 2nd game. Buckeyes are now 11-1 for the season.
Arizona State just knocked off Kansas! Kentucky handled North Carolina in the second game of the CBS Sports Classic as well.
Well Duke is back at #1, and Michigan has risen to #2 and Tenn is #3. There are 6 Big 10 teams and 6 ACC teams in the top 25. ACC has 4 top 10 teams, and the Big 10 has 2. Everybody will be back into conference play after the 1st of the year, so there will be a lot of changes coming in these polls and likely no unbeaten teams will be left by Feb 1. Right now only Mich, Virginia, Nevada and Houston are left in the unbeaten ranks. Houston is where Kelvin Sampson coaches, a guy who has proven to be a pretty good college coach but who has struggled with the rules, maybe he's finally learned his lesson. The question will be can he stay at Houston, will he get offers for a lot more money from programs that have deeper pockets than Houston and feel like they can hire him now that he's 1) having success again and 2) seeming to do it within the rules.
Conference play heats up all across the nation this next week. Some big upsets the last couple of day Corey has already pointed out that UCLA lost not just to Liberty at home but before that they lost to Belmont. You have to wonder if Steve Alford will last the season. Princeton upset Arizona State who was coming off a big upset of Kansas. Texas A&M was on a 5 game winning streak till Texas Southern came to College Station and beat them. Texas Longhorns are struggling along having lost 4 out of our last 7, including to Radford and VCU, only good win is vs Purdue and it might not be that good of a win. Unless things change we will be at best middle of the pack in the B12 and Shaka Smart will be skating on thin Ice. On the plus side the Board of Regents has announced a new on Campus arena for Basketball, should be sweet. The current one is being torn down for expansion of the Dell Medical School.
Looking forward to the conference play. We are 12-1 at this point. Unfortunately, we will meet Michigan State here on Saturday!
Pac12 fans didn't have a good football season missing the CFP again, and a 3 loss team as the Conf Champion. They didn't have a good bowl season last year either and are 1-2 this year with 4 games left. But they just finished the worst Dec of any Major Conference in Basketball. Pac-12 caps worst December in decades as 5 fall
Big game at noon today for the Buckeyes. We will entertain MSU here in Columbus. I hope that we dare not too generous in hosting the Spartans! MSU is favoured by 2 1/2 points.
We actually had a chance to win that game but fell short in the last few minutes. I am encouraged by our chances to finish strong in conference play.