The dream season has come to an anticlimactic halt. The little team that could is no longer. The 26-5 Ohio State Buckeyes fell to the 7th-seeded Georgetown Hoyas 70-52.
I was so nervous that I couldn’t even watch the early games. I had to keep myself busy with household chores. It seemed like approximately 4:40 p.m. would never arrive.
As soon as the first few minutes of the game passed, I wondered to myself what I had been so worried about. The Buckeyes, a tired and weary team, did not have a chance from the onset of the game. The Hoyas jumped out to an 18-10 lead with the sharp shooting of Ashanti Cook (17 points with 7 field goals out of 11 attempts) and the dominating inside play of Roy Hibbert (20 points, 14 rebounds, and 3 blocks).
The Hoyas had established the tone of the game. OSU looked flat and out of sync, ripe for a blowout.
OSU went on a mini-run after the 12-minute television timeout in the first half, pulling with 3 points at 19-22. Je’Kel Foster led the charge hitting three 3-pointers in a row. Foster had been playing through the worst shooting slump of his career, and his scoring outburst made the outcome of the game look more promising.
The common theme for the game was that every time OSU pulled close, Georgetown had an answer. The Hoyas ended the half on a 16-6 run, leading 38-25. Hoyas forward Jeff Green hit a couple of shots on the run and sophomore Hibbert showed no signs of slowing down. Foster scored all 11 points of his points in the first half. The Hoyas had a field goal percentage of over 50 percent in the first half and the Buckeyes shot under 40 percent for the half.
The second half was very similar to the first half. The Hoyas kept the lead around 10 points for the majority of the half, running their “Princeton-like” offense to perfection. With under 8 minutes to go, OSU went on a mini-run, pulling with 6 (48-54). The OSU guards finally began to include center Terance Dials. Dials was overlooked for most of the game. It was too little too late, and that’s as close as the Buckeyes would get. The Hoyas went on a 16-4 run to close out the game.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
You take our basketball players, then you beat our football team. At least we kick your ass in curling.
Man, it looks like OSU's gonna be a football school for a while. The black eye from this Savovic scandal (Savovicgate?) won't be too painful but it's gonna hurt recruiting most likely. But is it so bad to have the Fiesta Bowl in your back pocket?
2 - Sandwasher
This definitely was one of my all-time favorite OSU basketball teams, but the arrival of the "Thad Five" next year does ease the pain a little.