Let's get right to it. Today Ohio State played like shit....but still found a way to win. The #9 seed Musketeers of Xavier gave it all they had...and came extremely close to knocking off the #1 seed Buckeyes in NCAA Tournament second round play in Lexington, Kentucky. At halftime OSU held a 4 point lead and I thought that they would step it up and put the game away in the second half....but it was not to be. The Musketeers were dropping 3's like crazy and simply out playing the Buckeyes. With 3 minutes to play in the game Xavier had a 59-50 lead..and I thought all was lost. But the Bucks came storming back with a fury unseen until that point in the game. With less than 20 second to go OSU was down 61-59 and had a chance to take the lead or tie, but a 3 pointer by Butler was no good and the follow-up attempt by Lighty missed as well. There was a mad scrum for the rebounds during all of this with no fouls called...until an XU player came up with the ball and Greg Oden fouled him with 9.3 left in the game. That was Oden's 5th foul and it sent Xavier's Justin Cage to the line with a chance to put the game away by making free throws. He made the first one, making it a 3 point game. Now for the second....it went up and rimmed out...Conley grabbed the rebound and the race to beat the clock was on. With about 4 seconds to go Ron Lewis received the ball and put up a 3 point shot......and hit it. Overtime. In the extra session, the Oden-less Bucks turned to Conley who outscored Xavier by himself, scoring 11 of OSU's 16 overtime points....with Xavier only scoring 9. The final score ended up being OSU 78 XU 71. Ron Lewis led the Bucks in scoring with 27 points, including 4 crucial threes as well as 8 rebounds. Mike Conley finished with 21 points and Greg Oden had 14 points and 12 rebounds. Jamar Butler also had a good game, hitting 3 threes and scoring 13 points total. Ohio State is now 32-3 on the year and will face the winner of Tennessee/Virginia in the sweet sixteen in San Antonio, Texas next week. They will definitely need to step it up if they want to win another game. Today was pathetic, well, until the end. For the Cavs, another win was also in order. The hated Carlos Boozer mad his first trip back to Cleveland since leaving the Cavs to play for Utah. Despite being constantly booed he actually played a decent game, putting up 19 points as well as grabbing 14 rebounds. But late in the game, with Utah down 79-73...he missed two key free throws, to the enjoyment of the crowd, which helped secure the 82-73 win by the Cavs. LeBron James scored 24 points, with 10 of them coming all at once as part of a key 12-0 run by the Cavs in the 4th quarter.....and he also grabbed a season high 17 rebounds. Sasha Pavlovic was again outstanding with 21 points and Drew Gooden tossed in 14 points of his own as well as having 12 rebounds. It was the 8th straight win for Cleveland, who are now 41-25.
1 comment:
I thought Oden was going to receive at technical foul near the end of the game. That was a pretty hard foul. Ohio State got really lucky yesterday toward the end of the game and in OT. They better use it as a wake up call.
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