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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Mar 27, 2007 11:55:21 GMT -5
BTW, Oden is a smart kid. Let's not knock him because he went to OSU. It also wouldn't surprise me to see him come back for another year.
On the hoops side, he is the only shot they have. He will be an interesting test for Roy but I think we have a much better coach and that will be the difference. Matta was almost on his way out of Xavier as he underachieved there. He can obviously recruit, but he is not much of a coach in my opinion. He is in the Bill Self mode.
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Post by AustinHoya03 on Mar 27, 2007 11:55:28 GMT -5
You know, nobody has mentioned it, and it really doesn't matter once the tournament starts, but technically we're playing the #1 ranked team in the nation on Saturday. It would be nice to knock off a #1 two years in a row.
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RDF
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Post by RDF on Mar 27, 2007 12:01:41 GMT -5
BTW, Oden is a smart kid. Let's not knock him because he went to OSU. It also wouldn't surprise me to see him come back for another year. On the hoops side, he is the only shot they have. He will be an interesting test for Roy but I think we have a much better coach and that will be the difference. Matta was almost on his way out of Xavier as he underachieved there. He can obviously recruit, but he is not much of a coach in my opinion. He is in the Bill Self mode. Columbia Heights--are you sure you have right guy? Matta won at Butler, he took Xavier to Elite 8--something that got entire city of Philly in uproar when they had St. Joe's and Nelson/West team, and he's won 2 Big 10 titles--and Big 10 Tournaments at Ohio State--not to mention he's dominating in recruiting--I'd say he's been a good coach and never heard he was in trouble at any time. To compare a man to Bill Self--you would have to go back to what people said of Boeheim before he got Cuse there in '87--which was a joke because Boeheim's always been a good coach--he ticks me off time to time, but the guy can coach--he just happened to play in the best league in America--as he does now too.
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Madgesdiq
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Post by Madgesdiq on Mar 27, 2007 12:13:45 GMT -5
Conley has an uncanny ability to get into the lane and draw fouls on bigs.
I don't have the numbers, but I feel like every time I have turned on an OSU game he has been at the foul line. More concerned about Conley drawing fouls on Hibbert than Oden.
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Post by brutusisgood on Mar 27, 2007 12:22:08 GMT -5
Buckeye fan here checking in from Columbus. I've been reading your board this week in anticipation of a great match up, and I thought I would add to the discussion.
First of all let me say that I hope whoever wins this match up goes on to win the national championship. I can't root for UCLA because to me that is like cheering for the Yankees, and obviously I want Florida to lose no matter what. So hopefully either the Buckeyes or Hoyas can get it done.
These are my keys to the game for a Buckeye win:
On offense: I think our ability to penetrate and get into the lane will be key. In facing your zone we have to knock down our threes. I saw at least one post in the thread that said we are not a good outside shooting team, and I'm not sure I totally agree. We shot 36.9% from three on the season while Georgetown shot 37.1%, however the Buckeyes put up over a hundred more attempts on the season from three. In other words we are going to shoot it from outside whether we are going to make it or not, and I think we are a streaky team on the whole. In particular I hope Butler has a good game shooting from the outside. He is almost completely a three point shooter, and rarely takes a two point shots but he has been off on his touch lately in the tournament. If the Buckeyes go on a hot streak I like their chances.
Defense: I think containing Green will be the key. I listened to Thad's radio show the other day, and he talked about what a tough match up he is for our team, and how slowing him down will be critical. I hope that when he is on the floor we mostly play zone, and hope that your guards are having an off shooting night. Which probably won't happen since every team we have played in the tournament seems to be shooting about 70% from three against us. If you can make the outside shot and force us to play more man I think Hunter and Lighty might be given the task to cover Green. Lighty is a player many of you might not know, but his defense is really impressive and he has had a great tournament after a not so special regular season.
Overall to sum up I think the team that stays out of foul trouble and knocks down threes will have the best chance to win. It's not the most expert analysis, but I think it will hold true.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Mar 27, 2007 12:35:34 GMT -5
Matta's last year at XU people were calling for his head when they missed the tourney. He can recruit his butt off, but I question his X's & O's. After taking a look at his career, he has had success everywhere he has gone but I would change my earlier comments to say that he is the weakest of the remaining four coaches in my opinion.
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RDF
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Post by RDF on Mar 27, 2007 13:53:44 GMT -5
Matta's last year at XU people were calling for his head when they missed the tourney. He can recruit his butt off, but I question his X's & O's. After taking a look at his career, he has had success everywhere he has gone but I would change my earlier comments to say that he is the weakest of the remaining four coaches in my opinion. I'm pretty sure his last year at Xavier was when they lost to Duke in Elite 8 and then he left to go to Ohio State. Why would Xavier fans be so ticked off at Matta if they wanted him gone? During Xavier-OSU game they showed how anytime Matta did anything--be it at practice sessions or appeared on court/big screen--they would boo him for leaving them--a coach on hot seat isn't booed for leaving--and I think you have wrong coach in mind Columbia. Conley draws fouls due to his Kyle Lowry approach--he jumps into defenders or initiates the contact--and he gets call due to being able to absorb hit and still get shot off--it's a veteran move and key is to bring it up prior to game so you might not get it called--I don't want games decided by officials--so I don't want offensive foul called unless it's obvious--but I also think a game where kids are allowed to play forces players to adjust and if you are going to initiate the contact or jump into defenders--and nothing is called--then you'll stop doing it. Marvelous player and smart player--unlike Lowry who would just jump into people and get bailed out--he was good but Conley is superior in every way on the court.
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Hoya50
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Post by Hoya50 on Mar 27, 2007 14:06:28 GMT -5
frankly, conley scares me more than any of the other osu players. he is speed squared with an ability to control the ball like its on a yo-yo. wallace/sapp have to be careful not to pick up silly fouls trying to body him or pick his pocket.
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Post by brutusisgood on Mar 27, 2007 14:15:33 GMT -5
Thad might have been on the "hot seat" for a while in his last season at Xavier because they had a slow start? They did, however, end up winning 16 of their last 18 in 03 and 04, and had Thad's 3rd straight 26 win season at Xavier. I'm not a college basketball coach expert, but I can't complain with his records complying an average of 25-8 per season coming into this year, and am happy to have him as the Buckeyes coach. It's hard to argue with an average of 25 wins a year.
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Post by brutusisgood on Mar 27, 2007 14:23:08 GMT -5
frankly, conley scares me more than any of the other osu players. he is speed squared with an ability to control the ball like its on a yo-yo. wallace/sapp have to be careful not to pick up silly fouls trying to body him or pick his pocket. Conley has been my favorite Buckeye to watch this season. I always enjoy watching great point guard play, and he is something special. For anyone who doesn't know he set the single season tOSU record for steals and assists this season, and put up a 3 to 1 assist to turnover ratio. As to his quickness apparently in high school he ran a 10.7 100 meters as a sophomore, and long jumped more than 22 feet. Love that guy.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Mar 27, 2007 14:29:32 GMT -5
Is OSU much different from last year outside of personnel? It seemed to me in our game last year that you tried to get it into Dials and then you had a bunch of chuckers from 3. This year, you have Oden instead of Dials and the big improvement is Conley who can break people down off the dribble. You still have the chuckers from outside. Last year was on arguably your home away from home court in Dayton as well.
We have both changed a good bit of the personnel, but the styles seem to be pretty similar still. Thoughts Brutus?
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Mar 27, 2007 15:02:55 GMT -5
frankly, conley scares me more than any of the other osu players. he is speed squared with an ability to control the ball like its on a yo-yo. wallace/sapp have to be careful not to pick up silly fouls trying to body him or pick his pocket. Conley has been my favorite Buckeye to watch this season. I always enjoy watching great point guard play, and he is something special. For anyone who doesn't know he set the single season tOSU record for steals and assists this season, and put up a 3 to 1 assist to turnover ratio. As to his quickness apparently in high school he ran a 10.7 100 meters as a sophomore, and long jumped more than 22 feet. Love that guy. 22 feet? He should have done that in the standing LJ, considering his pedagree. His father, although the Oly champ in the TJ, was a 26, maybe 27 foot LJ'er.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Mar 27, 2007 15:12:22 GMT -5
Final Four full of rematches and potential rematches. First of all, our rematch with OSU. It should be harder than last year, but I hope we win again. Fl-UCLA, rematch of the final game, and to top that if both teams win, the Hoyas-Gator rematch with GU, I hope, winning this time.
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Post by brutusisgood on Mar 27, 2007 15:23:35 GMT -5
Is OSU much different from last year outside of personnel? It seemed to me in our game last year that you tried to get it into Dials and then you had a bunch of chuckers from 3. This year, you have Oden instead of Dials and the big improvement is Conley who can break people down off the dribble. You still have the chuckers from outside. Last year was on arguably your home away from home court in Dayton as well. We have both changed a good bit of the personnel, but the styles seem to be pretty similar still. Thoughts Brutus? Yeah I think that seems to be our style. We have a little more size with Hunter coming off the bench where as last year after Dials we really had no size whatsoever. It was a terrible match up last season, and you were exactly the kind of team I didn't want to face. Our outside touch was also gone at the end of the year last season, and we just couldn't win against a team with your size when the shot wasn't falling last season. Lewis and Conley like you said will drive to the hoop, and Cook can take people off the dribble as well. Cook, however, has seen diminished playing time at the end of the season and his shot has been off. In the first half of the season with Oden on the sidelines Cook was actually our leading scorer, and was named big ten 6th man of the year, but I'm not sure how big of impact he will have. I haven't been trusting his game lately at all. If he does have a big game that would be a huge plus for us. I also think we seem to play a bit more zone than last season, and will get out and run a little more due to Conley running the point instead of Butler. It's been a big plus having multiple ball handlers. Last season certainly was all about Dials staying out of foul trouble and being able to hit the three. This year those are still keys, but with the improvement on the ball handling and ability of guys to get to the rack we have more to fall back on if that isn't getting it done. Also if it isn't obvious Oden's impact on the defensive end has been huge allowing our perimeter players to have a safety net.
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VelvetElvis
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Post by VelvetElvis on Mar 27, 2007 15:53:11 GMT -5
Barker Davis said that he would walk back from Atlanta if GU didn't get Oden in foul trouble.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Mar 27, 2007 16:19:43 GMT -5
This might also be a game where Roy's improved conditioning (relative to last year) comes into play. In the few times I've seen Ohio State play, there's been a considerable drop-off in their play when Oden is on the bench. I'm not sure if that's a general trend for them, but if Roy is able to get more minutes than Oden it could help our chances a lot.
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Post by mm on Mar 27, 2007 16:50:19 GMT -5
I guess no team ever runs willy-nilly through MMadness but does anyone else think the Hoyas underachevied in their wins over first BC and then Vandy? BC had like three scoring options and that game basically went down to the last 90 seconds and Vandy was a friggin battle but maybe it was because they shot the lights out from 3 point land in the first few min.
That being said it was hard to fault GU's effort in the last 20 vs UNC. As soon as the boys started boarding and Jesse and Co cut off Lawson's drives, we were in the driver's seat. So maybe the second and third games were our bad games and now we're REALLY kicking it into gear. Conley can run with the best of them but we're starting to find our that our guard D was very underrated and I like GU's chances unless OSU totally switches gears and pounds the ball to Oden all game OR a guy like Lighty, who can jump out of the friggin' gym, tears it up on the boards.
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sead43
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Post by sead43 on Mar 27, 2007 17:07:34 GMT -5
only 96 hours to tip-off.
AAHHHHHH!!!!!
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PopeJohn2
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Post by PopeJohn2 on Mar 27, 2007 17:49:15 GMT -5
I think Roy and Oden are going to be AT WAR immediately upon tipoff. Both are going to try to send a message to each other. This is old-school hoops -- big men trying to enforce their will on the direction of the game. The differential has to be Jeff Green. It is the one position where Georgetown has absolute advantage. what about summers? OSU has got no one who can guard summers (when hes playing well, which he has been of late).
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Post by Churchwell on Mar 27, 2007 17:54:40 GMT -5
mm - I totally agree with you. Against BC and again vs Vandy I felt like Georgetown did not play their best ball. I thought we would beat UNC simply because I couldn't see the Hoyas playing too many games in a row without breaking out the good stuff we've all seen so many times this season. Outside of giving up WAY too many offensive rebounds, and perhaps not doing enough to change the initial pace of the game, I do think we played one of our best games against UNC (our box score was just sick). If the Hoyas bring their A game Saturday, they'll beat tOSU--just ask everyone outside of Syracuse. NY who's played us over the past three months. If we do get by Oden, Conley and Lewis, it's FLA that worries me...I'm not sure the A game is enough against those guys. They're like the bizarro Georgetown...they have an equal and opposite starter to match everyone of our key guys (with the exception of perhaps DaJuan) and with their up-tempo, aggressive, emotional style it could be like a clash of two worlds (not to get ahead of myself ).
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