Good morning, and welcome to the Skull Session.
Because an intro ought to have something fun in it, Urban Meyer's visage in stone is one tough-looking dude (truly, he has granite chin). However, the focus today is on reflection on something more sober: the tornado that hit Oklahoma yesterday.
The tornado has wrought extensive damage and killed dozens; by some reports it is the most powerful tornado in history. Because of the destruction, whatever material support you can provide will help.
The American Red Cross's site is here. There are other ways to donate, and other worthy charities as well. Though intangible, thoughts and prayers do matter as well. Getting involved, however you choose to do it, matters.
With that said, onto some Buckeye news.
MEN'S TENNIS EDGED OUT. Following a quarterfinal win over USC, the 5th ranked OSU men's tennis team sought to keep its dream season alive against #1 UCLA in the NCAA tournament semifinals in Champaign, Illinois. After a series of incredibly close matches, the team ultimately came up short, losing 4-3.
After losing one point to UCLA in the doubles matches, Ohio State needed to win four of six singles matches in order to advance, and the team was only able to manage a split. OSU's #1, 3, and 4 players (Blaz Rola, Connor Smith, and Devin McCarthy) all won their matches, while #2 Peter Kobelt and #6 Constantin Christ each lost set tiebreakers; only #5 Chris Diaz lost without playing a third set or a tiebreaker.
OSU finishes the year with a 35-3 record, a Big Ten championship, and a likely 3rd place finish in the national tournament. It must be heartbreaking to face the best team in the country and come so close to the finals; however, the eight-time defending Big Ten Tournament Champions will likely get another shot at glory next year.
COACHES MAKE MO DOUGH. The Big Ten, which has a reputation for skinflint coach budgeting, is still behind the SEC and Big 12 and Pac-12 in coaching salaries, but some coaches have gotten significant boosts in salary. Not surprisingly, Ohio State pays its assistants the most at $3.4 million, with Luke Fickell, Everett Withers, and Tom Herman all making 550-600K. Also, Kerry Coombs makes the most of any non-coordinator, non-assistant head coach at $300,000. Michigan, Nebraska, and Wisconsin pay the next most.
Tom Dienhart of BTN suggests that Iowa's coordinators are "vastly underpaid" at $325,000. This raises the question of whether he saw any of Iowa offensive coordinator Greg Davis's woeful horizontal offense, but I digress. A system where vastly underpaid coaches rake in six figures is a wealthy system indeed.
In a similar story, conference commissioners are paid well too. Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott is very well paid at over $3 million a year, overtaking Jim Delany's $2.8 million compensation and Mike Slive's $1.6 million. A commissioner compensation arms race could be in store; at the very least, it's a heck of a lot more likely than spreading the millions of dollars in excess money out to, say, poor players or broke graduate assistants.
LaQuinton Ross is key for 2013-2014. Q IS THE X FACTOR. Following LaQuinton Ross's sudden maturation in the midst of March Madness, two nascent storylines for the men's basketball team in the 2013-2014 season appeared: first, whether Ross (who had shown the skills to be a marquee scorer) would declare for the NBA Draft; second, if he stayed at Ohio State whether he could become the centerpiece of the Buckeye offense.
With Ross staying in school and Deshaun Thomas departing for the NBA, the first question is answered and the second question is more prominent than ever.
In hardly-surprising news, ESPN's Eamonn Brennan and Andy Katz list Ross as Ohio State's key returnee for the 2013-2014 season. Katz is enthusiastic about Ross's athleticism, while Brennan, who thinks Ross has the potential to be a top-five pick in next year's NBA Draft, is concerned about sample size and Thomas's absence:
The question is whether Ross is ready to replicate that March performance for the length of a college basketball season. This is a massive challenge. Ross won't be asked to do more in the same context as last season. He'll be asked to be the featured scorer on an offense that will desperately need someone to approximate the reliable excellence of NBA-bound forward Deshaun Thomas. Thomas really was excellent: He finished the season with a 114.4 offensive rating while shooting 32.2 percent of Ohio State's available shots while on the floor. The Buckeyes were first and foremost a defensive team, at various times the best in the country (particularly from mid-February on), anchored by players who are not of the go-to offensive breed. But Thomas was not only good in his own right, he demanded so much attention from opposing defenses that he helped turn a team of average scorers into the 12th most efficient in the country, by KenPom.com's adjusted efficiency lights.
The best thing that can happen for Ohio State's team success, as has been said many times elsewhere and Brennan repeats, is for other players to handle their share of the offensive load efficiently, namely Sam Thompson, Shannon Scott, and Amir Williams. Should that happen, Ohio State's 18-1 odds of winning the 2014 national championship look pretty good. Otherwise, I may not have seen a better summary of LaQuinton Ross's tantalizing promise than this:
We've seen glimpses. Are we to assume that Ross' assured March is the turning point, the early warning signs of a star putting it all together? Or was it just a tantalizing but ultimately outlying small sample size?
We'll find out in a few months. Ross might not be a lottery pick, or a top-five pick. Maybe the potential is so bright it is blinding me the point of confusion. But Ross could be all of those things. If he is, I bet we'll find out in 2013-14.
A MEYER LOOKS AT FORTY. As can be expected of most men in their forties, Urban Meyer is fond of Jimmy Buffett. This goes back a ways: in 2008, Buffett was a guest on Meyer's sideline for a game against South Carolina.
It's fitting, then, that in continuation with Meyer's chill(er) outlook on life since resigning from Florida that he'd keep up with the fandom. In crucial news that was covered up by the lame-stream "media", he and Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen attended a Buffett concert together in April.
There are no embarrassing photos or anything, but in light of this and Luke Fickell's tittered-over Taylor Swift concert appearance, will the next OSU coach after Meyer be hounded at a Nickelback concert in 2037? Answer: probably!
LINKS AHOY. The hardship of retired NFL players... How did Minnesota lose money on alcohol sales at football games, again?... A game-ending home run flyout... a game-ending flyout single... not a great Final Jeopardy performance, Wisconsin... Bobby Bowden is going strong in retirement... in the Game of Pools, you win or get dunked... Yahoo pays $1.1 billion for Tumblr, once paid $3.6 billion for Geocities... and a 1940 Brooklyn Dodgers fan vigorously disagreeing with a call.
