BOSTON -- He hurt his leg. He hurt his back. He hurt his hip. His play was falling. And worst of all, Jared Sullinger's NBA value was falling.
So he lost big money by deciding to come back to Ohio State this season instead of turning pro. It all built up, and he started snipping at officials, blaming them.
This has been a tough year for Sullinger. So why does he seem satisfied?
"The decision (to come back) was the best for me and my goals," he said. "I want to leave, if I leave, just with winning. As long as we're winning, I'm happy . . . I really don't care about my (NBA) stock."
That does not compute. Not in today's sports mentality. It seems all wrong and out of place to think there might be some reason to play in college over the pros. But Ohio State beat Cincinnati 81-66 Thursday night in the East Region semifinals, and Sullinger has his spark back. He's suddenly using the NCAA tournament as a showcase for the NBA — the way it's meant to be used.
No, that's not fair. It's not what he's doing at all, if you take him at his word. And there is no reason not to. This is what Sullinger wanted. This: Ohio State will play Syracuse Saturday for a spot in the Final Four. And with Syracuse center Fab Melo out, ruled ineligible, Sullinger is going to be dominant.
Ohio State should reach the Final Four, and in Sullinger's strange world, that seems to be a goal in itself.
"The basketball team last year really had a touch of my heart," he said. "There's some guys where they're pretty much family. I mean, I really couldn't let my family down like that."
From most people, that would sound as phony as it does when the NCAA guys running postgame interviews insist on calling the players "student-athletes."
That makes me giggle every time. You can be suspicious about Sullinger's word, and figure that he came back to raise his value, climb to a higher, better-paid spot in the NBA Draft. But the truth is, he already would have been a top-five pick after last year.
When you see him play, it's hard not to imagine what he will amount to in the NBA. He will still be a fairly high first-round pick, and will make plenty of money. He passes great, runs well. At 6-foot-9, 280, he's big.
He can be flat-footed, though, and doesn't jump high enough. He also hasn't proven that he can guard an NBA-caliber power forward. Best case, he might be as good as Elton Brand; solid, but no superstar.
But why am I watching an NCAA tournament Sweet 16 game as if that's not an end to itself? The NBA doesn't have to be the gauge for everything.
It doesn't seem to be Sullinger's personal measure of success.
The NBA sees the NCAA tournament as a marketing tool, getting national exposure for its future players. (That's a big reason why David Stern wants rules forcing players to stay in college even when they want to start their NBA careers.) And surely plenty of players see the tournament as their showcase.
But Sullinger seems to take it for what it is: another chance to win another championship at another level. He won the state championship in high school, won three straight AAU national championships, and wasn't satisfied with losing last year in the Sweet 16 as a freshman.
So he came back to win some more.
There are no other big men like him in the tournament, other than Kentucky's Anthony Davis. And the combination of Sullinger and Deshaun Thomas on Thursday was just too big, too much for Cincinnati, which plays primarily with four guards.
The game, basically, was just the big guys crushing the little guys.
Sullinger had 23 points and 11 rebounds, as the two forwards combined to score 49.
There had to be times when Sullinger didn't think this was going to happen this year, with his injuries and frustrations. He didn't even have the shooters with him this season to force defenses to back off a little bit. So he was double- and triple-teamed.
Now, he's so close to the one reason he came back. In today's sports world, it might seem hard to understand what he was thinking. It looks like he had so little to gain and so much to lose. But he might gain the Final Four.
Sullinger seems to see this tournament not for some other purpose, but just for the purpose of itself.
"Hopefully," he said, "the train doesn't stop here."
Not till it pulls in to the NBA, right? Nope. He was talking about the Final Four.
