It’s been a month and a half since that fateful day a magical season ended. That day when the Buckeyes lost against Kentucky for the first time in the NCAA Tournament.
A lot of words have been spilled on a lot of sites around the internet about Buckeye Nation’s feelings towards that loss. Now that we’ve had some time to sit back and digest, however, it’s worth looking at this season as a whole.
The Buckeyes clearly fielded one of the best teams in school history. They went undefeated for 24 straight games, a feat not equaled by a Buckeye basketball team since the early 1960’s. They were the first team since the 2005 Illinois squad to be discussed as a candidate to match the undefeated 1976 Indiana team.
These things are not done or said about any old basketball team. Your team has to be unbelievably good to be in those sorts of discussions.
If you look solely at win/loss records, no team lost fewer than 3 games, and only 2 teams managed that – Ohio State and Kansas. Yes, your Buckeyes were in the same class as Kansas, a traditional college basketball “Blue-blood” this year. In fact, there have been comments made about the Buckeyes earning a place among the top tier basketball programs with this last season.
To be honest, I’m not quite there yet myself, but I certainly think we’re on the right path.
The negative, of course, is that this team seemed built for a title run. Going into the tournament, near everyone watching this team seemed to think that. The Buckeyes had senior leadership from David Lighty, Jon Diebler and Dallas Lauderdale. They had great guard play from Diebler, Buford and the surprise standout Aaron Craft at the point. And they had a solid inside game with the nearly unstoppable Jared Sullinger in the paint.
Too bad it just wasn’t to be. A lot of fans (and bloggers) were wringing their hands after that close Kentucky loss, and certainly with reason. This team was good. At least as good as the 2007 squad that went to the title game. They just didn’t prove it on the court.
Admittedly, I was not surprised at the way we went out. I knew going into the tournament that this team was going to need a last second shot to advance somewhere, and I was certain we didn’t have a player who could hit it. I strongly believe that tournament champions need to win at least one gut check game to make it the whole way. Remember Xavier in 2007, with Lewis putting in that beautiful shot to tie it up.
These types of games happen all the time in the NCAA’s. We all love them when they happen to other programs, and hate them when they happen to our own teams. The Buckeyes simply couldn’t get the job done in the face of adversity.
But I want you to remember, and keep clearly in your head in the coming months or years, that the Kentucky game was lost by a matter of 2 inches. 2 inches to the left and William Buford’s shot finds the bottom of the net. 2 inches and we continue on in the tournament and laugh about our 6-0 record against the Wildcats in the tournament.
For a last second desperation shot, it was nearly as good as you could ask for, and taken by the one player who most likely could have made a gutshot basket like that. Diebler had already demonstrated last season (at home against Purdue) that he couldn’t hit a shot like that even with no-one between him and the basket. That’s nothing against Diebler, arguably one of the best three point shooters in Ohio State history, it’s simply a fact of experience.
But the point to be made about this season is this: the way the tournament plays out does not decide how good a team really is. As has been argued in endless debates between NBA Playoff/NCAA Tournament fans, the NCAA Tournament rewards the best team that night. You can argue all you want that the best team in the nation will clearly play their best every night, but that’s definitely not true. NCAA history is littered with great teams that dropped the ball due to one off night against a team that came prepared.
Don’t believe me? Just look at Kansas last year. Easily one of the best teams in the nation falls to Northern Iowa – a complete unknown. That team then loses to Michigan State in the Sweet 16. Michigan State fans will beg to differ, but I honestly believe the best team failed to escape that bracket.
The point is that we should not remember this team for their loss against Kentucky and supposedly early bow-out of the tournament. This team should be remembered for their 34-3 overall record. Their 24 unbeaten streak to start the season. Their shellacking of a very good Purdue team. Their beatdown of the former Cinderella George Mason. The joy they shared in simply playing the game and being a team.
If you have trouble putting the Kentucky loss behind you, you should remember what we thought of this team coming into this season. We had just lost Evan Turner, the National Player of the Year. We had a spectacular recruiting class coming in, but no-one had any idea how they would perform on the court. It was well known that Sullinger would be good, but the point guard position was a major question mark.
Jay and I discussed regularly how we felt this team would do in our podcasts. A win at Florida seemed like a longshot early on – and yet we crushed them (in the second half). We didn’t think we would go through the preseason undefeated – but we did. We believed that we would lose an early conference game to Minnesota, or Michigan, or even Indiana – but we didn’t.
This team was special. This was a team that Buckeye fans should remember fondly, just as we fondly remember the year with Greg Oden. We knew we were seeing something special during the course of the year, and it’s important to not lose track of that feeling.
With Sullinger and Buford returning as they promised after the Kentucky loss, and with the flood of incoming talent, it will be interesting to see what the Buckeyes look like next year. Joe will be taking a look at the upcoming season in his next few posts.
With any luck, those teams will be even better than this one was. But that won’t diminish what the 2010-2011 Buckeyes did.
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