Greg Oden, our freshman center, had a huge game yesterday against Tennessee with 24 points, 15 rebounds and four blocked shots. We had way too many turnovers (20) but still managed to win in the closing seconds 68-66. Chris Lofton for the Volunteers is a very prolific scorer. Their press really created some problems for us. Don
Tennessee is typically a very good team Don so that's a good win. Last season when we won the NCAA tournement Tennessee beat us twice and won the SEC East and I think they have a lot of their team back.
Some good BB yesterday afetrnnon. UF over USCeast, VaTech over UNC, and OSu over UT. And yes Tom, I was pulling for UT just as I did earlier whaile watching the Outback Bowl. Looks like there may be a new #1 tomorrow and with no mid-week game maybe UF can hold that ranking for at least one week. With Ole Mis in Ganesville on 1/20 and then a trip to Miss St, maybe the team will hold #1 for a couple of weeks.
It's damned near impossible not to lose a regular season BB game or two in the SEC....especially with #1 tied around your neck. Exciting win for OSU...I watched the end of it and saw the clutch 3 to take the lead. I'm sure the Bucks fans feel a little relieved at finally getting something out of playing the SEC.
Don: Thanks for the kind words after beating my team. That's something that others around here should use as an example. I just watched the game on Tivo (too much going on with work, fire dept., and the farm land) and can't believe how off Chris Lofton was. OSU fought back from 3 points down just before the half to 3 points up at the half to 10 points up a couple of minutes into the second half. We battled back to take a one point lead with a minute left. A three pointer, and low percentage free throw shooting did us in. Congrats for doing what it took to win the game. I'll now go lick my wounds. :?
Hey, Don. It looks like "Pops" Oden is starting to get his game together. Ma her looks like Robert Parish's father 8)
Careful with the "pops" reference there George. The S/B police will view that as antagonizing the locals and showing no class.
I saw the second half...we were lucky to win this one. Lofton is a great player. I hope our problem is just that the rest of the team is having to figure out how to play with Oden in there, and he is adjusting to college ball. During the Wisconsin loss the announcers said that OSU had geared its early play around Oden being out with his injury, and now it's all new to them again. I missed the first half...Oden must have been a force. In the second half it was obvious to me that the strategy was to work the ball in to Oden...Tenn was triple teaming him and you knew he was going to go to the bucket anyway...and as often as not he laid up a brick. IMHO he has to learn to dish it out when he's tripled up. With the ability of all our guys to shoot, we should be dynamite if we could get the inside-outside game going. Defensively, we were able to stop Tenn from hitting their quota of threes and left Oden to guard the middle. When a couple of the big guys hit some long shots he started coming out a little, and Lofton and the guys adjusted perfectly, cutting into the basket for layups. Add in our mishandling of the press late in the game (what was up with that?...they did fine early in the half) and we almost lost a game that I had thought was in the bag midway through the second half.