Posts from the Columbus 1 Category at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

If you haven't noticed ... and judging by ESPN's ratings you haven't ... the N.I.T. crowned their champion last night. Ohio State beat UMass, 92-85.

While is was a nice win for the Buckeyes, not all of them seemed to be impressed. Especially Jamar Butler:

"That's what happens when you put an NCAA Tournament team in the NIT. They walk through it," senior Jamar Butler said with a smile. "Write that."

Maybe. While I'm not one to dismiss the N.I.T.'s value as others do, you still need to know your role. With the way the NCAA tournament panned out, it wasn't a given that Ohio State would have done anything in the NCAAs. Maybe they would have (Villanova beat them out for that final spot and advanced to the Sweet 16).

Either way, it was a nice ending to Butler's career ... which saw him playing in the NCAA title game a year ago.

Freshman Evan Turner put it in an interesting context:

"It feels good to go out with a win," said Turner, a freshman. "I don't know if this is what a Big Ten championship feels like or a national championship feels like. Hopefully my teammates and I are fortunate enough to experience that some day. But right now, this is good enough."

All hail the NIT champs!

Its really hard to defend a Major League Soccer when there's a team in Columbus, Ohio. That's not necessarily a knock on the fine indigenous townspeople, but you have to admit that it sounds a little shady that the MLS team is the oldest franchise in town. That nonsense aside, we know that there's plenty of good old fashioned American fun to interest the dozens of Columbus fans looking for fun during the season. We've made the following clip to bring everyone else up to speed on the Crew's wheelings and dealings.

Video link

1st Qtr | 2nd Qtr | 3rd Qtr | 4th Qtr

The fourth quarter of The Game begins with Ohio State ahead of Michigan 14-3. Michigan is competing on defense, but you can tell they're wearing down against Chris Wells and the Buckeyes' offensive front. The key to this quarter will be Michigan's ability to make a stop here and set freshman quarterback Ryan Mallett up with some field position early in the quarter. Michigan's defense did make that stop early in the fourth. Just 45 seconds into the fourth, Michigan is forced to punt after Todd Boeckman threw incomplete in the face of pressure on third-and-nine. Greg Mathews broke off a nice punt return that started with what looked like an ill-advised decision to pick up a bouncing punt just inside Michigan territory. The 27-yard runback set up Michigan at the Ohio State 34, but tOSU is challenging and saying Mathews went out of bounds about a dozen yards ahead of where the ball was spotted. Now, it's up to Mallett and the offense. If you're just joining us, Chad Henne's bad shoulder rendered him relatively useless, and he was lifted in the third quarter. He went off and then came back to the sideline, and he's throwing on the sideline, looking like he intends to return to the game. In fact, Henne joined Michigan's sideline huddle, only to be followed by head coach Lloyd Carr. The review showed Mathews stepped out at the Ohio State 46, but that's still good field position. Henne is indeed back. Just 10 of 25 for 60 yards, he threw deep in Mario Manningham's direction on first down, and Manningham couldn't come up with it near the goal line.

Every season, there are a few surprising teams that rise up from the ashes of a poor season and get off to a bullish start. Some teams, like the Carolina Hurricanes two seasons back, keep the momentum and show that they are 'for real'. For many other clubs, the clock strikes midnight and they go back to being as crappy as they usually are.

This season is no different, as a few misfits from last season, as Michael Arace of the Columbus Dispatch notes, are off to great starts, and have some potential to make the leap from pretender to contender.

Let's have a look at who is for real, and who is bound to come back to earth.

Chicago Blackhawks: After the death of "Dollar Bill" Wirtz, the whole club seems to come out of a decades-long dark cloud, and into the 21st century. Young stars like Jon Toews and Patrick Kane have the chiefs off to a 5-5-0 start. A 27-29 goal differential shows that the club isn't a total fluke. They have managed to do this without Martin Havlat in the lineup, as well.

That said, a 5-5 start isn't overly impressive, and one losing streak is enough to take care of any playoff hopes. With a young team and a lack of depth up front, chances are that this team will struggle eventually and finish out of the playoff race. Still, this is a true building year and Hawks fans ought to be hopeful for the future.
Sergei Samsonov: What a waste of skin. Just two assists and -6 in 10 games?

The 2007 NHL Entry Draft is in the books, proving that Columbus is a burgeoning hockey town with a penchant for partying, even when the event it's hosting has been described as "unremarkable." In reality, the draft had some interesting storylines: The glut of American-born players taken in the first round; the journey of Akim "The Dream" Aliu from Nigeria to Ukraine to Canada to the Chicago Blackhawks; and, of course, Columbus Blue Jackets' draftee Trent Vogelhuber, a.k.a. this year's Monsieur Sans Rapport. There were also some lasting images from in and around Nationwide Arena, as captured by professional shutterbugs and yours truly:

The Blue Jackets officially unveiled their new logo during the draft, one that emphasizes the Ohio state flag. (If they really wanted to move some merchandise, they'd have used The Ohio State flag.) Columbus claimed it wanted to play up the Civil War roots of its "Blue Jackets" nickname, which seems like a much better idea than basing your entire team concept around a fictional insect.

I mentioned earlier that the biggest question facing tonight's Ohio State-Florida national championship game is how many minutes Greg Oden will play. In part that's a question of what kind of game the referees call.

But it's also, in part, a question of what kind of strategy Ohio State coach Thad Matta uses. When Oden picked up his second foul just a couple minutes into Saturday's Ohio State-Georgetown game, I was shocked when CBS commentator Billy Packer suggested that Oden would sit out the rest of the half. But I was even more shocked when Matta proved him right, keeping him on the bench until after halftime.

Although it worked out OK for Ohio State, I strongly disagree with that strategy. King Kaufman gets it exactly right today:

Matta [sat] Oden on the bench for nearly half the game -- nearly half the game! -- to try to keep him from fouling out. What happens if he fouls out? He has to sit on the bench. It's kind of like never driving your car so you don't get a flat tire, because if you get a flat tire, you can't drive your car.

I really hope Matta isn't so cautious tonight. Ohio State needs Oden on the floor, not the bench, and if Matta puts him on the bench to keep him from fouling out, he's outsmarting himself.

Previously at FanHouse:
How Many Minutes Will Greg Oden Play?
Dick Vitale Wants Basketball to Eliminate Fouling Out
Foul Trouble Ruins Greg Oden-Roy Hibbert Battle

I like CBS studio host Greg Gumbel, but he took an early lead in the competition for the dumbest announcer comment of the NCAA Tournament this evening. During a live look-in at the Ohio State-Central Connecticut State game, Gumbel said with a tone of surprise in his voice, "I think Ohio State got off to a more solid start today than in any of their Big Ten Tournament games."

Yes, what a shock that Ohio State's three Big Ten Tournament opponents -- Michigan, Purdue, Wisconsin -- are able to keep it closer against the Buckeyes than Central Connecticut State is. Ohio State (RPI 1) jumped out to a 21-11 lead against Central Connecticut State (RPI 147). No one could have seen that coming.

Studio analyst Seth Davis brought a little sanity to the proceedings, telling Gumbel, "I don't think anyone's going to mistake Central Connecticut State for a Big Ten team."

If you're obsessing over every single possible 12 seed in the Tournament and can't possibly imagine how you're supposed to wait six more hours to hear from Jim Nantz and Billy Packer, here's a way to kill some time: The Bracket Project features every bracket from every bracket-oriented web site (34 in all), all compiled in one place.
Take a look and find out some fun things. For instance, there's one bracket (from MRI Sports) that doesn't have Ohio State projected as a 1 seed. Otherwise, everyone thinks the Buckeyes are a top seed.

On the other side of things, some bubble teams have reason for optimism (29 of 34 brackets have Illinois making the tournament) and other bubble teams have reason for pessimism (just 13 brackets include Stanford).

Overall, The Bracket Project is a great way to feed your obsession. Click the link and enjoy.

There was a lot of talk about the long layoff between the Ohio State / Michigan game and the Rose Bowl and BCS Title game, and it's looking like the Big Ten might actually do something about it.

Lloyd Carr has been the biggest proponent of moving the game to the first week of December, but Jim Tressel really isn't a fan of the idea:

"I wouldn't like at all the option of playing the week after Thanksgiving, because I think that's one of the things that's a real plus when you play in the Big Ten as a studentathlete is you train all summer long and you know you play a hard season.

"But you know what? You're going to have a Thanksgiving (at home). And for as hard as our guys work, I think that's a real plus for them. I wouldn't want to kick the season backwards."

As a fan I could really care less. I certainly wouldn't be opposed to seeing Ohio State's season extended a couple of weeks since it would make the season feel longer, but in the end the amount of football I get to see won't change unless a game is added somewhere.

Tressel makes a great point that Thanksgiving at home is a great bonus for the players, but in the end the Big Ten will probably have to make a move, and I'm not sure this is the one to make. At some point won't a Big Ten title game make sense? I realize that it'd be a terrible move tradition wise, and I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I can't help but be excited thinking about the possibility. Big Ten basketball finally caved in to having a league tournament. Football will eventually do something similar when it comes to a title game, and I think the league will be better for it.

More: Date with Michigan might be moved - Columbus Dispatch