For those of you who tuned in to watch Ohio State’s Senior Day win over Maryland last, it’s time to revisit my good pal Ryan’s evergreen Chris Holtmann tweet.
Because we’re right on script with last night’s performance.
You always want to be peaking in March! But someone probably should have told Holtmann that he also had to play the previous two months, too.
Here’s the thing, if Ohio State had not completely shit its pants about seven too many times this season, I probably would have been suckered into thinking this team could compete in March, especially with the way the veteran transfer players performed last night.
From Griffin Strom of Eleven Warriors:
Both Buckeyes (Sean McNeil and Isaac Likekele) came out red-hot to ensure that streak remained intact in their final game at the Schottenstein Center, and with the help of Justice Sueing – who led Ohio State with 16 points on the night – the three seniors who were honored before the contest wound up being the story of the game as they willed the Buckeyes to a 73-62 victory. That trio finished with a combined 37 points for Ohio State, and McNeil and Likekele scored 19 on a perfect 7-for-7 from the floor in the first half alone.
“Me and (Likekele) talked about it a little bit and then this is the last one here,” McNeil said. “So we kind of came out with a different look in our eye, for sure. We wanted this one bad.”
With their surge, Brice Sensabaugh’s scoring, Bruce Thornton turning into a legit scoring threat at point guard, and Felix Okpara getting confident, this team is suddenly playing the best basketball its played since almost beating Purdue two months ago.
I just want to get on record here that the funniest possible outcome would be Ohio State somehow winning the Big Ten tournament and earning an automatic bid against all odds
… and then getting bounced in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. It would almost be poetic.
- PROGRAM-CHANGING RECRUITS
It’s kind of wild to think about given the current state of the program, but we’re really only like 10 years into Ohio State truly recruiting nationally instead of regionally with a sprinkle of out-of-state mixed in.
And a decade later, Urban Meyer still remembers that feeling of going down to Georgia and taking a guy that everyone in the SEC wanted.
From my pal Ari Wasserman of The Athletic:
“Raekwon McMillan or Vonn Bell. The reality was that the quality was there, but the quantity wasn’t there in Ohio or the North anymore. Great players, just not as many. There was a time when Woody Hayes filled his roster with Ohio prospects, and even Jim Tressel, 18 of 25 (players in each class) were from Ohio. When I got hired, the expectation that (athletic director) Gene Smith and I had was that we were going to try to win a national title. That meant going to get the best players in America — it didn’t matter where they were at. If it is in Ohio, go get them. Somewhere else? Go get them. So when we went nose-to-nose with Georgia and the teams in the South, I remember sitting back and thinking, ‘We did it, we’re a national player.’ Ohio State has always been national, but I’m not sure to that extent.”
I will always see Vonn Bell as a program-changing player at Ohio State, and it has nothing to do with what he did on the field (though he was also underratedly awesome at Ohio State).
I vividly remember the moment he committed. I was sitting in art class at my high school in suburban Georgia and I had my phone out on my desk watching his signing ceremony. My assistant principal walked in and came up behind me without me noticing and I thought sure he was going to take my phone, but he just said “Oh don’t worry about it I just want to see where Vonn Bell goes.” He was a Bama grad.
Alabama and Tennessee wanted him badly and they seemed to have more momentum. But he picked Ohio State, then was a starter when the Buckeyes beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl about two years later.
His commitment and career helped set the expectation that Ohio State wasn’t just going to occasionally compete with the big dawgs in the SEC, they were going to do it regularly, and they were going to win.
And as a kid who spent his most impressionable years watching Ohio State lose back-to-back national titles to SEC teams while living in the heart of SEC land, that meant everything to me. And I refuse to live in a world where it’s no longer true.
- THE FREAKIEST OF ALL FREAKS
I’m not really an NFL Combine guy. I have absolutely no interest in watching dudes in spandex go through drills for hours. I’ll catch the highlights of the fast boys from The Local Team running their 40s and maybe hit it with a retweet when it hits Twitter, but that’s about it.
However, this year I’m pretty stoked about all the physical tests because I am completely fascinated to see what numbers he puts up.
Dude might be the freakiest of freak athletes I’ve ever seen and I am stoked to see the reaction when the NFL world learns about it.
This is a dude who came in at 6-foot-5, 250 pounds in high school, and was one of the most dominant defensive ends in the country. But then he was also a wide receiver on offense and the anchor on his school’s 4×100 meter relay team.
He’s up to 270 pounds now and is surely a little bit slower as a result, but I’m still ready for the reaction when a 270-pound defensive lineman runs the 40-yard dash looking like a track star.
EAT ARBY’S. Remembering when cocktails were just soup… A giant flying bug found at Walmart turns out to be a “super-rare” Jurassic-era insect… Penis length has grown 24% in recent decades, but that may not be good news… Amazon has a donkey meat problem… The luxury bunkers where the super-rich plan to save themselves from a future apocalypse…