Good morning Buckeye faithful and welcome to your Sunday Skull Session. We hope you've been having a great weekend.
Now that spring football is over, the majority of Buckeye fans (perhaps a generalization) have been scouring the web looking for any bits of football information to hold them over until the fall.
For me personally, I have been able to curb my "no-osu-athletics-until-fall-depression" with Reds baseball and jumping on the New York Rangers bandwagon.
Okay, I admit it, I also jumped on the 76ers bandwagon but solely because of Evan Turner. It's just impossible not to thoroughly enjoy watching him, especially after being in Columbus during his three years at Ohio State. I truly feel like I watched him grow up, despite not knowing who he was until Thad locked him down in 2006. Anyway, watching him come into his own during the playoffs has been great.
Besides watching the MLB (I'll be tweeting from the Reds @ Yankees today), bandwagoneering the NBA/NHL and working, I've spent the last few days analyzing the post-spring depth chart, just like all you people out there (you know who I'm talkin' about). I have nothing left to think about and can't wait until all the summer news and hype kicks off. Just a matter or time..
DOSE OF ROUNDBALL RECRUITING. Scout has released an update for their top 100 for 2013. Ohio State commit, Marc Loving, dropped down to 35th overall (originally 26th).
Several other Ohio State targets made moves as well. Chicago Simeon SF Jabari Parker (6-7/215) remained the overall number 1 and SI has said that he is the best high school baller since Lebron. This kid is a must get for Thad, but he has every major program in his ear. Jabari has multiple major decisions on the horizon with choosing a school, but he also has a Mormon mission that could delay his jump to the pros. That'll be a very interesting story.
Several other Buckeye prospects made the list including Florida C Chris Walker (6-10/205) sticking at #6 overall, Michigan SF James Young (6-6/190) moving up to #7, Maryland C BeeJay Anya (6-8/255) moving up to #11, and South Carolina SG Sindarious Thornwell (6-4/175) up to #19.
With plenty of time remaining before the first signing period, you can definitely expect many changes after the AAU season this summer.
HONORING OHIO. Ohio Governor John Kasich held an event to honor Ohio's success in the NCAA Tournament. Representatives from all Ohio Sweet-16 schools, including Ohio, Ohio State, Xavier, and Cincinnati attended the event. In addition Wittenberg University and the College of Wooster as well as the women’s teams from Division II Ashland University and Division III University of Mount Union were present as well.
During the event, Aaron Craft was able to team up with Cincinnati's Cashmere Wright in a H-O-R-S-E game vs. Gov. Kasich and Buckeye-Alum and CBS personality Clark Kellogg. Fortunately, someone was able to capture a cool video including Craft sinking a three in his polo:
URBAN DOESN'T AGREE. With the Big Ten ADs now in agreement that college football should have a four team playoff, Coach Meyer doesn't necessarily agree with his boss.
"You play in one of the bowl games and then it's (teams seeded) 4 vs. 1 and 2 vs. 3 and then you go play the championship game. I can only imagine the workload that's going to be on that coaching staff and those players. I can't even fathom that you're trying to get ready for a national championship in two days — because that's what you've got because of travel."
You also have to imagine that winning a title now can be perceived as being more difficult, especially coming from the SEC. In my opinion, winning the Big Ten is obviously way more obtainable than winning the SEC. So, instead of winning the Big Ten leading to a chance to win one game for the title as opposed to potentially playing two additional games to win it seems way more difficult than the former. I tend to agree with Meyer.
For entertainment purposes, add a playoff! For Ohio State championship purposes, keep it as is!
NBA BUCKEYES CRACKING THE LIST. With the first round of the NBA playoffs in the books, I came across this cool graphic of top NBA schools, by minutes, for the playoffs. Obviously the numbers are slightly different for the second round with Memphis done (Mike Conley), but a cool graph nonetheless:
TO ROCK OR RHYME THAT'S RIGHT ON TIME, IT'S CLICKY! Reds relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman could be the best arm in the game and he's only pitching in the 8th inning. The NCAA won't be putting stickers on the court anymore for tournaments. A cool video on the new recycling project at Ohio Stadium. Of course, Texas and Ohio State are 1, 2 on the athletic budgets.
