By Zac Jackson
FOX Sports Ohio
January 29, 2010
Thoughts on the Ohio State basketball team as the Buckeyes prepare for Saturday night's game at Northwestern...
1. This would seem to be the spot the No. 1 Buckeyes to come back to Earth a little bit. And that thought makes sense, considering OSU was darn close to perfect four days ago in a home thrashing of Purdue in a prime-time, national TV game and now goes on the road to what resembles a high school gym against a Northwestern team that's season is basically on the line. But the Buckeyes are getting everybody's best shot these days, and none have been good enough. Add that to the fact that Northwestern's best player and leading scorer, John Shurna, might not play after suffering a concussion earlier this week and you've got, oh, 22 reasons to think the Buckeyes can get to 22-0, even without their A-plus game.
2. Shurna has also been battling an ankle injury since the start of conference season, which is about the time 13-7 Northwestern started struggling. The Wildcats are 3-6 in Big Ten play, 0-6 vs. ranked teams, lost by 32 (it felt like 62) at home to Wisconsin last weekend and, frankly, if Northwestern couldn't beat some of the teams it hasn't, there's not a lot of reason to think it can suddenly beat Ohio State. Shurna is the conference's best 3-point shooter at 52 percent, and any upset bid against Ohio State -- not just this one -- is going to start with the underdog throwing in a whole bunch of 3's and making Ohio State score like crazy to get back in it.
3. As I've written before, both history and the law of averages say that Ohio State is eventually going to lose, maybe even more than once before the NCAA tournament. But lots of things say it won't be tonight, and my eyes tell me that the Buckeyes are MILES ahead of most of the rest of the Big Ten right now. There's lots of bad, bad basketball being played from Iowa City to State College right now, and the Buckeyes are really good, really poised and darn close to complete. Not many teams can match their athleticism on the wing, and the ones that can match or beat it don't seem to have any type of answer for Mr. Sullinger underneath. It's officially time to start looking around the country for teams that maybe, eventually could give the Buckeyes trouble.
4. My fellow couch potatoes, it's a great day to lay around and watch some of those teams. The Big East is delivering some hurt-your-eyes games as I type, but Syracuse-Marquette at 3 is one both teams need, and Kentucky has a whole bunch of studs in a revenge game vs. Georgia at 4. Kansas, which is loaded but hard to figure, plays Kansas State tonight and the 9pm ESPNU game has Texas, which would be the nation's hottest team if not for Ohio State, hosting up-tempo Missouri. From what I've seen lately, I think Duke and Texas currently stand the best chance to eventually beat Ohio State. But, again, neither seems to be able to match Sullinger in the post, especially with the way he keeps passing out of double teams and creating open looks for his teammates.
5. Five or six weeks from now, the best part about that beatdown of Purdue was the rest Sullinger got; three days after playing all 40 minutes in a wild one at Illinois, he sat the final 10:39. We know the Buckeyes' few flaws include a lack of real depth, something that's been masked of late by Dallas Lauderdale's re-emergence as more than a ghost (a really tall, really intimidating ghost, but still) and Aaron Craft's emergence as big-time player instead of skinny-freshman question mark. With Northwestern tonight and Michigan home on Thursday, it would be a great time for freshman Jordan Sibert to get some confidence-building minutes in more than garbage time -- just in case, you know? -- and for Sullinger, Jon Diebler and David Lighty to not have to play 38 or 40 minutes. It's a long way to April. It looks like Buckeyes fans are going to enjoy the ride.
