FanNation - The Republic of Sport

After losing last year in the national championship game, Ohio State looked like they would have a lot of promise going into the next season. That was, of course, if Greg Oden would return to the Buckeyes's team and avoid the NBA Draft. Obviously that didn't happen.

So this year, the Buckeyes went to the Pre-Season NIT Championship (I got to see them at Madison Square Garden in the semi-finals, the day before Thanksgiving). They ended up losing to Texas A&M, 47-70.

When the regular season started, the Buckeyes opened up 1-2, a rocky start. But they rebounded from that with an eight game winning streak. The streak was snapped by Purdue, and a three game losing streak started. Then a three game winning streak. The season was like a long roller coaster ride at a Six Flags, tons of ups and downs, corkscrews and spirals, but sooner or later you had to go back to the station. And that's what they did; went back to the station finishing on a stretch of only four wins and six losses, including a four game losing streak.

The last game was a victory over the Michigan State Spartans, 63-54. So the Buckeyes and the fans had to be feeling good when it was set up that their opener in the Big Ten Tournament would be against the same Spartans team they had just beaten. The problem was that the Spartans wanted revenge, and that's exactly what they got with a 67-60 win over OSU.

Now came the wait. Ohio State was 19-13 and on the bubble for the Big Dance. When Selection Sunday came around, they found out that the team missed the tournament. They did, though, get an invite to the Post-season NIT (to them the Not Invited Tournament, not National Invitational Tournament). So after wins over UNC-Ashville, California, Dayton, and Mississippi, they found themselves in the finals of the same tournament they were in at the beginning of the year last night. The Buckeyes would play another team that everyone thought deserved to be in the Big Dance, Massachusetts.

Long story short, OSU won the game, 92-85. After losing in the finals last year, I'm sure this isn't where they envisioned themselves standing with a trophy at in the next season, but I'm sure they're aren't complaining, either. I do think, though, that they and UMass should have made it to the NCAA Tournament. Ohio State did beat (in a low-scoring game) Coppin State, who lost the play-in game. They were probably better than all of these teams that did make it; Mount St. Mary's, Coppin State, Portland State, Texas-Arlington, Austin Peay, Mississippi Val., and others. Would either team advance past the first round if they made it in? Maybe or maybe not. But you can't find out when you pop the bubble.

It's good that both of these teams made it to the Post-season NIT Final, but I think they deserve to be more than the best of the rest.