Oden Fouls Out

Buckeyes, Musketeers, and Justifying the Dual Loyalty

It's a good thing the NCAA bracket-makers oh-so-innocently slotted Xavier right next to Ohio State in the South Regional. Of the several great games played last Saturday, this was the best. It had the backstory, it had the momentum swings, and it contained maybe the two best elements of the Tournament- the great upset and the great comeback- in one game. (The upset didn't materialize, but for all but about two seconds it certainly looked as if it would.) It also contained the electricity that is Gus Johnson, and he absolutely nailed the game-tying three by Ron Lewis, more than making up for his god-awful screech at the tail end of Gonzaga's choke-a-rama against UCLA last year. Gus can and does call a Browns-Texans game like it's the Super Bowl, but this time he found the situation to match his bombast, and he got it right.

Here are the highlights courtesy of CBS and YouTube (pops).

There was more at stake than just a spot in the Sweet 16. A Xavier win is probably the best in that program's history. I'm not an expert on Musketeer basketball, but how can beating the top-ranked team and an in-state rival in the NCAA Tournament be topped there? As for Ohio State, having a potential National Championship run aborted in the second round by freaking Xavier would be up in the stratospheric portions of the school's worst-loss list. X had everything to gain, OSU had everything to lose, and there was no in between. It wasn't your average 1 vs. 9.

The game brings to mind a way of college basketball life that exists in Ohio and probably other states as well. It's the phenomenon of the dual football-basketball loyalty.

Not a few Ohioans who are fans of Buckeye football are fans of other schools in basketball- much of them smaller in-state schools to which they, you know, actually paid tuition. The guy who has no problem with the Buckeyes hammering Bowling Green at the Horseshoe may bleed Falcon orange-and-brown on the hardwood. The Akron guy who would be mortified at an actual win over the football Bucks would drink himself into a happy stupor if his Zips toppled the basketball version in March. It's not uncommon. I'm a Buckeye fan in the fall, but in the winter my number-one team is Kent State. The Flashes were neck-and-neck with the Bucks in my youth, and took the edge for good on my first trip to the KSU bursar's office in the winter of 1994. Neither the Thad 5, nor the Michael Redd-Scoonie Penn Final Four of 1999 have swayed me. The lackluster Kent teams of my college days didn't cool my ardor. I have no complaints about Ohio State being #1 in the land, for sure. But I'd sure as hell trade it for a Kent MAC title and just a trip to the Tournament, with the rest being gravy.

I have no such mixed Kent-OSU feelings in football. Uh-uh. I attended many Kent State football games at Dix Stadium- a lot of awful football in any kind of shitty weather you can name- and that program doesn't deserve support. And believe me, I tried. I really did. Many were the elusive victory I chased. But one night in 1990, sitting under a freezing rain and watching the Flashes lose to Cincinnati thanks to the usual smorgasbord of dumb penalties, untimely turnovers, and horrendous special-teams play, I decided I'd had enough- enough of the suck. I walked away for good, and all of the tuition payments in the world couldn't bring me back. I make no apologies for my abandonment of Kent football, and promise never to backslide, even if the Flashes make it to the Motor City Bowl, or that one they played in Canada a week after New Year's.

Kent is an extreme example, but fans of other MAC schools are in the same boat when it comes to Ohio State. There is no chance- or almost no chance- of a Kent, or an Ohio, or a Miami, beating the Buckeyes, and there really is no chance of any MAC school meeting OSU, or any other major power, when it's time to compete for the ultimate prize.

There is no point to making a MAC school the A-Number One in football. In basketball, there is a point. It matters. It may not matter a whole hell of a lot, but it does matter.

Xavier doesn't have a football program anyway. Your average X hoop aficionado and Scarlet-and-Gray football lover has no dual loyalties when it cuts that way, and if it's true that he can vote the straight ticket and root for the Buckeyes in basketball too, well, there are about $32,000 reasons why he damn well ought to root for Xavier something over Ohio State anything. And when he pulls for the Musketeers, he hardly pulls for chumps. In any given year, Xavier can smack the Buckeyes right in the mouth.

Therein lies the satisfaction if you're a MAC fan, too. Well, maybe not this year. But...

...Ohio State's basketball team has spent a pretty good chunk of the last fifteen years or so in the middle to bottom of the Big Ten standings. The program has been on probation, and it has also been downright horrendous- at times untalented on an almost Northwestern level. In the mid-to-late late '90s the Buckeyes, on a neutral court, would have been handled by any number of MAC teams, not to mention Cincinnati and Xavier. Fans in the state were better off sticking with Devin Davis's Miami Redhawks or Gary "The Shaq of the MAC" Trent's Ohio Bobcats than the ghastly Buckeyes, whose one postseason game of that ragged period was an NIT loss to, conveniently, the O.G. Miami.

Even good Buckeye teams can be, and have been, outclassed by the in-state rivals. The 2002 team under Jim O'Brien won the Big Ten Tournament but on a neutral court was probably the fourth-best team in its own state, behind Cincinnati, Xavier, and Kent. And NIT-bound Bowling Green would have also given the Bucks fits- the Falcons, with Keith McLeod, had one more NBA-caliber player than that Ohio State team had.

When it comes to Division I football, the state is an aristocracy. In basketball, it's a democracy. OSU is the biggest and the richest, but it's all the same game. Twelve Ohio basketball schools have an at-least theoretical chance of doing what Xavier almost did- beat Ohio State, and do it in a championship situation, when it matters most. Dual loyalties? Absolutely. Bring 'em.


The Top Ten NCAA Tournament In-State Battles

These aren't the only examples of in-state Tournament battles, including within the states in question, but they're among the most notable-ist.

10. The Battle of Pennsylvania
1971 East Regional Final: Villanova 90, Pennsylvania 47

It's hardly a classic, but it stands as probably the best example of a team getting hammered right out of an undefeated season. The Penn Quakers were 28-0, ranked third in the nation and had already beaten Villanova during the regular season, but all that was blown away in one two-hour nightmare. 'Nova climbed out to a 43-22 halftime lead then, just in case Penn didn't know it was beaten, came out of the locker room and scored the first 16 points of the second half. The Wildcats shot 61% to Penn's 30%, out-rebounded the Quakers 41-29, and hounded star Bob Morse into a 2-for-8 shooting performance.

9. The Battle of Michigan
1977 Mideast Regional Final: Michigan 86, Detroit 81

The number one-ranked Wolverines needed a monster rebounding performance by Phil Hubbard to ward off an upset bid by Dick Vitale's Titans. Hubbard's 26 boards, the single-game high for the '77 Tourney by a whopping eight, were four less than Detroit's entire team total. Michigan was subsequently stunned by UNC-Charlotte in the Regional Final. A few years later Hubbard played for Vitale with the Pistons, where he recalled the future ESPN self-caricature as prone to violent, profanity-laced outbursts following losses (which were many).

8. The Battle of Kansas
1981 Mideast Regional Semifinal: Wichita State 66, Kansas 65

The Wichita troika of Antoine Carr, Cliff Levingston, and Randy Smithson combined for 50 points as the sixth-seeded Shockers squeaked by the seventh-seeded Jayhawks in New Orleans. Wichita's bid for a Final Four berth was shot down by LSU in the Regional Final.

7. The Battle of North Carolina
1969 East Regional Final: North Carolina 87, Davidson 85.

Lefty Driesell's Southern Conference Champion Wildcats were thinking upset- until North Carolina's Charlie Scott knocked in a twenty-footer with two seconds left to break an 85-85 tie and send the Tarheels to Louisville's Freedom Hall for the Final Four, where they were promptly drilled by Purdue. This was the second consecutive East Final meeting between UNC and Davidson- in 1968, the Tarheels had edged the Wildcats 70-66.

6. The Battle of DC
1980 East Regional Semifinal: Georgetown 74, Maryland 68

Played in nearby Philadelphia, this was a battle of contrasts- Lefty Driesell's lordly Terps of the old-money ACC, against John Thompson's upstart Hoyas of the brand-new Big East. Sleepy Floyd led the way for Georgetown, scoring 18 points as his Hoyas withstood a big game from Maryland's Buck Williams, who had 18 of his own on 8-of-10 shooting with 15 rebounds. Georgetown went on to the Regional Final and blew a 14-point second half lead, losing to Iowa 81-80.

5. The Battle of Oklahoma
1994 Midwest Regional Second Round: Tulsa 82, Oklahoma State 80

Playing in Oklahoma City, the 12th-seeded Golden Hurricane roared back in the second half to stun the Bryant "Big Country" Reeves and the fourth-seeded Cowboys, who thought they'd had it made when their underrated in-state neighbor knocked off UCLA in the opening round. Over the next decade Tulsa would become alternately the bane and the darling of the brackets, and the coaching job would become a revolving door for the next guy who needed a boost up into the big time.

4. The Battle of California
1971 West Regional Final: UCLA 57, Long Beach State 55

49er coach Jerry Tarkanian had a long-standing resentment of the John Wooden UCLA dynasty, a hostility borne from being hounded by NCAA investigators while the Bruins, with questionable practices of their own, weren't even glanced at. Tark had his best chance at the ultimate in one-upmanship in the '71 West Final in Salt Lake City, when he met a Bruin team surviving life between Alcindor and Walton. Long Beach held UCLA to 29% shooting and made 21 field goals to the Bruins' 18, but in crunch time, the whistles were as tough on Tark as the investigators. UCLA shot 32 free throws to Long Beach's 22, 49er star Ed Ratleff fouled out with five minutes left, and a Bruin parade to the line enabled them to escape. They went on to their fifth straight National Championship.

3. The Battle of Kentucky
1983 Mideast Regional Final: Louisville 80, Kentucky 68 (OT)

The Wildcats and Cardinals hadn't played at all since their meeting in the 1959 Tournament. Louisville, featuring Milt Wagner, Rodney McCray, and Lancaster Gordon, was second-ranked nationally and the top seed in the region, but needed to come back from a seven-point halftime deficit to tie the Wildcats 62-62 at the end of regulation. Once in overtime, Louisville dominated, outscoring Kentucky 18-6 to pull away and head to the Final Four, where they lost to Houston.

2. The Battle of Alabama
1989 Southeast Regional First Round: South Alabama 86, Alabama 84

Ronnie Arrow's Jaguars trailed by sixteen at halftime of their long-awaited meeting with the Crimson Tide before rallying in the second half and winning on a last-second three-pointer by Jeff Hodge, a member of USA's famed "Peanut Butter & Jelly" backcourt (famed in Sun Belt Conference circles, anyway). The Jags then nearly upset Michigan in the second round, before falling by five to Glen Rice and the soon-to-be-Champion Wolverines.

1. The Battle of Ohio
1961 Championship Game: Cincinnati 70, Ohio State 65 (OT)

The defending National Champion Buckeyes, featuring Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek, were undefeated and overwhelmingly favored over the Bearcats, who hadn't been expected to contend at the beginning of the season without the graduated Oscar Robertson. But Cincinnati played nearly perfectly, committing just three turnovers the entire game, and took the lead for good early in OT on a pair of free throws by center Paul Hogue, normally a terrible foul shooter. The Bearcats would beat the Buckeyes again in the '62 title game, and wouldn't need overtime to do it.

*****

By the way, just in case we haven't had enough in-state fun, there's still the possibility of a Tennessee-Memphis South Regional Final.