College Basketball reeling from Omicron.. more than 50 men's programs have been or are currently in a pause to team-related activities as a result of the coronavirus. More than 100 games have been canceled or postponed for men and women since Saturday alone.
Actually Don it'll probably work out well for those teams affected now. They will be cruising later in the season without any concerns.
Basketball Buckeyes won their game with Nebraska last night in Lincoln 87-79 in OT for their third Big Ten win of the season. Malaki Branham, freshman guard, small forward had a breakout game scoring 35 points. We are currently tied with Michigan State for the lead in the conference.
Buckeyes loose to Indiana in Bloomington 69-51. We were in the game for 30 minutes but collapsed in the final ten minutes. They out hustled and outplayed us down the stretch.
A lot of good teams in the Big 10, Don. I'm surprised that Michigan isn't one of them so far. Illinois looks like an underrated team, Badgers are always tough. ACC continues to be pretty ordinary, it wasn't that long ago that we'd have at least 5 ranked teams and at least 6 or 7 NCAA teams. Right now we have 1 ranked team, Duke. Big 12 is loaded, starting with Baylor. Texas is relevant again with our new coach and rebuilt team. KU is KU and Texas Tech, Iowa State also having good seasons.
Our Guard play is miserable. Our highly touted freshmen have not lived up to their 5* ratings sobfar and we really miss the players who left- especially Franz Wagner who is having a great rookie season in the NBA. M looks like they will be fortunate to make the NIT. Also, under Beilein, players improved their skills in succeeding years. That trend seems to have stopped under Howard even though he has great assistants.
Don....dont mean to nasty here, but if NU took you to OT...even at home, it means you suck this year.
No one likes folks who make excuses but part of OSU's problem the last 2 games was poor shooting...could be related to rust from COVID and missed practices and games. Hopefully the shooting percentage will come back.
Texas lost to unranked Oklahoma State most of the stats were equal but they went to the line 23 times to 7 for Texas. They got 16 points at the line we got 5,pretty much explains the 13 point margin. Longhorns started the season #5, but have slipped down to #14. We had a very weak non conference schedule, which seemed reasonable given a new coach and a bunch of transfers. Give the team time to get used to each other. B12 is really stacked this year so could be a rough conference season. 3 elite freshman coming next year. Fans need to be patient as Smart left the cupboard pretty bare
You are right, it reflects [pre-season #5] was based on the moves he made to take the roster from literally 0 scholarship players to a full roster by talking a couple of players out of the portal adding some transfer players and a few freshmen. A formula that had worked well for him at Tech. Then we played a very weak non-conference slate I assume to get the guys used to one another. But didn't prepare them for good teams. We were grossly overrated. Now facing a murders row in the B12 it could get ugly. Beard will have to coach his ass off to get this team to the NCAA. Right now we are a severely challenged team on offense.
Stu was correct, the Buckeyes defeat Northwestern 95-87 at home this evening. We shot 70% in the first half. Excellent FT by both teams.
Down goes #1 Baylor to Texas Tech at home. Tech beat #6 KU on Saturday and now #1. I'd say that the Red Raiders are a team on the rise. 65 - 62. I watched the last 5 minutes, they played great defense and made a lot great plays. They were even missing their top player.
The last top 25 unbeaten goes down, USC had reached its highest ranking and was the last unbeaten after Baylor went down earlier in the evening. Lost to unranked Stanford on the road.
Actually I was in a restaurant with TV's and both games were on. I think the USC game was first unless the Baylor game was taped. Baylor jumped out to a 9-0 lead and was up something like 17-9 when we left.
They never seem to make it easy, but the Aggies moved to 15-2 today with a 67-64 win over Mizzou. Big games coming up against much better competition, but it's nice to see a decent team out there again! Would love to see them make the tourney for the first time in too long...