#5 Ohio State 59, Northwestern 50 (Final)

[osugrad21]

Dispatch

NO. 5 OHIO STATE 59 NORTHWESTERN 50
Buckeyes lean heavily on Oden
Freshman center?s 17 points, 17 rebounds help hold down upset-minded Northwestern
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Bob Baptist
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

EVANSTON, Ill. ? Greg Oden walked a walk few do last night.
Leaving the court in Welsh-Ryan Arena with a police escort after a television interview, he nevertheless was smothered on the way to the locker room by fans snapping his photo with their cell phones and asking for autographs on everything from a flat basketball to an old sneaker.
They wanted a piece of him for posterity. They didn?t know if they?d ever see him again in the flesh.

 

[bkochmc]

I didn't see the game, but I am a bit surprised by some of the negativity.

• Wisconsin won at Northwestern 56-50 and a lot of people think Wisconsin should be ranked #1.
• Wisconsin led 52-50 with less than a minute left.
• Northwestern jumped out to a 13-9 lead on Wisconsin.
• The computers had Ohio State down as an eight point favorite in this game; we won by 9.
• Last time we played Northwestern, they played without a leading player and played them immediately after the heartbreaker against Wisconsin.

I didn't see the game and I defer to the opinions of those of you who did, but my overwhelming thought is that we probably came in thinking we'd mop the floor with them and discovered very quickly why they had played Wisconsin so tough. After we dropped the zone and manned up on them, they discovered why we are going to be in the Final Four.

Good points but most of the complaining was more of the way the team played (turnovers, lack of leadership from the upperclassmen).

Bring on Michigan State, which will be our toughest game for the rest of the year prior to the Big Ten Championship and NCAA, in my opinion.

Are you conveniently forgetting Wisconsin on 2/25 or honestly think the MSU game will be tougher? (no sarcasm, just curious)

 

[Steve19]

Good points but most of the complaining was more of the way the team played (turnovers, lack of leadership from the upperclassmen).

Are you conveniently forgetting Wisconsin on 2/25 or honestly think the MSU game will be tougher? (no sarcasm, just curious)

Like I said, I didn't see the game and I defer to what you guys saw. Still, I think there is a lot of good in that win.

As for Wisconsin, I think that we will beat MSU and Wisconsin at home but that both will be close (about 4-8 points in it at the end). I think the game at MSU will be the toughest. They are better than people think. They will have seen us once. They are always tough at home versus Ohio State.

 

[crazybuckfan40]

Here is a stat to keep in mind when thinking about last nites game...

Road teams in the Big 6 conferences in conference play:

SEC 7-26 .212
Big Ten 9-25 .265
Big East 18-34 .346
Big 12 11-20 .355
ACC 14-23 .378
Pac-10 16-21 .432

That just goes to show you how hard it is to play on the road in college bball and for us to knock off Illinois and NW so far and take Wisky down to the last shot is saying something especially with a young team...