dew1679666265

I'll feel much better if Florida loses tomorrow, but with my luck they'll probably go all the way. :cry: At times like this, I hate sports. Why couldn't I have grown up loving Duke, the Yankees and the Patriots? My life would be so much easier. I apologize to everyone on the board for these horrible words, I'm just in a very depressed mood right now. Exactly how I felt about 4 hours ago... You'll get over it eventually. I'm already partly over it. But usually, the morning after is the worst. Hopefully I don't break my hand from punching a wall. The morning after is terrible, especially for me. I have a 45 minute drive to work and I always listen to the local sportstalk station. In the morning, all they'll be talking about is the game tonight. Thus I have to either relive every moment of this game or not listen to sportstalk (probably what I'll do). Then, when I get to work, being the sportswriter, I'm expected to discuss the game with whoever wants to and, while that's normally an enjoyable part of the job, it'll suck in the morning. The good thing is, my boss (an OSU fan) is on vacation so I won't see him again until Monday.

I'll feel much better if Florida loses tomorrow, but with my luck they'll probably go all the way. :cry: At times like this, I hate sports. Why couldn't I have grown up loving Duke, the Yankees and the Patriots? My life would be so much easier. I apologize to everyone on the board for these horrible words, I'm just in a very depressed mood right now.

I don't see how we did that. We tried to play the exact same style as we did in the first half, but between our shots not falling and the extra fouls being called (whether correct or not) slowed the tempo of the game down. There wasn't a fundamental change of style on our part, it was simply poor performance from the young players and especially Lofton. Okay, maybe not so much Tennessee as Xavier. But the defense in the second half was a lot different. But like you said earlier, taht comes with the team's style of play. Giving up only 32 points in the first half was pretty good, but it just looked like that full and 3/4 court pressure defense took a lot out of the players, and Ohio State was able to climb back in that way. The press does hurt us against very deep teams like OSU because we only go about 7-8 with strong depth. Things get iffy any deeper. Teams like OSU can trot 9-10 guys out there and that hurts. Once Bruce has a little more time to bring in more depth and a little more talent, the press won't negatively affect us nearly as much. I can already see how much more effective it is this year with an extra 1-2 guys in the rotation.

That's my biggest beef about the way the game ended. The second half was called super tight, and basically every time a guy drove to the hoop, the defender picked up a foul. The Tennessee rebounder got fouled, and the rest of the half they were calling what Conley did (getting in the offensive player's way on a drive) a foul. Call the game the same the whole way through. I think college basketball refs are only marginally worse than college football refs. Agreed, except I think basketball refs are much worse than football refs. No doubt.

And at least half of them have been ticky-tack crap. the officiating in that game was awful... are these really the best college basketball refs? They must be, and that's the sad state of officiating. I've seen it in high school games too. Officials just seem to be getting worse all the time. This game was weird, though, in the fact that they would let obvious calls go (JaJuan getting thrown around on the final rebound) and call ticky-tack fouls (hand checks right beside each team's bench) all second half. It honestly looked like two completely different officiating crews in each half. No excuse though, we had a 20 point halftime lead - we should have won that game but we blew it. Believe me Dew, if you saw that play again, you'd agree with me on this one. I've watched it about 5 times, and it was completely incidental contact-the OSU guy was backing up to run down the court and the UT player almost fell on top of him-if he had fallen to the ground, the officials might have been forced to make a call, but there was really no foul there. Even if I take back my statement that it was obvious (which I'm willing to do if you're that sure), the refs were calling incidental crap like hand checks nowhere near the basket the entire second half. There is no difference between that and 75 percent of what they were calling from halftime on. Again, though, I put no blame on the refs for this loss. We blew it. Pure and simple. We had the game won at halftime and we choked. It hurts now, but we are a very young team and I'm not all that surprised. It sucks though.

I don't see how we did that. We tried to play the exact same style as we did in the first half, but between our shots not falling and the extra fouls being called (whether correct or not) slowed the tempo of the game down. There wasn't a fundamental change of style on our part, it was simply poor performance from the young players and especially Lofton.

And at least half of them have been ticky-tack crap. the officiating in that game was awful... are these really the best college basketball refs? They must be, and that's the sad state of officiating. I've seen it in high school games too. Officials just seem to be getting worse all the time. This game was weird, though, in the fact that they would let obvious calls go (JaJuan getting thrown around on the final rebound) and call ticky-tack fouls (hand checks right beside each team's bench) all second half. It honestly looked like two completely different officiating crews in each half. No excuse though, we had a 20 point halftime lead - we should have won that game but we blew it.

We're not that bad a defensive team when we're playing. When you run the style of offense we do, you're going to allow points, that's just a simple fact. We force many turnovers and the full-court pressure D is excellent, but when the tempo gets going the way we want it, both teams are going to score because each team gets alot of possessions. The problem tonight was not our defense, it was that we were running our offense and simply couldn't score on the fast break and this team's half-court offense is terrible. It's something Bruce has been trying to fix all year, but alot of it is because we are ridiculously young.

Yea, we really played terrific in two and a half games. Somehow, we just collapsed in this second half. It never should have gotten to that point, no excuse for giving up a 20 point halftime lead. This really sucks. But thanks for the kind words Andy.

This sucks.

yep

Oddly enough, I was enjoying it alot more in the first half when it wasn't nearly as great. :)

And at least half of them have been ticky-tack crap. At least half? Try all. :D I'm trying to not be biased here. :D

Lofton's starting to hit some shots, that's important.

Why don't you go away til this game ends? :wink: It's a good thing for you that he picked the Buckeyes -- he doesn't know what he's doing. True. :D

And at least half of them have been ticky-tack crap.

Why don't you go away til this game ends? :wink:

Oden coming back in, hopefully for his fifth foul.

No kidding, it's getting silly.

That and tOSU decided to play some D. Most of what's being called is ticky-tack stuff. They're letting other more obvious stuff go. And this is both ways, not just against UT.

These refs have gotten whistle happy this half. That's part of why we can't get the tempo up.

4 fouls on Oden. Maybe some hope still remains. These refs have been befuddling at best. :?

Yep. :(

This is ugly. We have to break out of this slump or OSU is going to put us in a very bad predicament. We just can't seem to get the tempo up to where we had it in the first half.

No, this is fielding a team filled with freshmen and sophomores against a more talented team. We're doing nothing different this half, it's just the shots aren't falling right now. Bruce has nothing to do with the struggles right now. That's what Iowa fans said for years with Tom Davis running the show. Rarely have we blown a large lead under Bruce. Plus, OSU is simply a better team than us, if they play they'll score. We just have to score more.