Trey McDonald, Amir Williams and Shannon Scott sat a table Saturday afternoon to preview the final home game of their careers which takes place 4:30 p.m. Sunday against No. 6 Wisconsin.
The fourth member of this senior class — Ohio State's high-flying dunk artist Sam Thompson — was a few minutes late for this particular interview session, but when he arrived as Williams was answering a question, the 6-foot-7 forward from Chicago was sporting a pair of sunglasses.
"This guy did not just show up in sunglasses," Williams said as he sat back in his chair. McDonald and Scott shared a laugh. Thompson calmly sat down, pretending like it was nothing out of the ordinary.
Because, perhaps, it wasn't anything but normal behavior for the four Buckeye seniors who will be taking the Schottenstein Center floor for the final time Sunday against the Badgers. They've been cracking jokes and playing together for four years now.
Ohio State has two other seniors — Jake Lorbach and Anthony Lee — but neither of them have been on the team for four seasons. Lorbach is a former walk-on and Lee is in his first and only year with the Buckeyes as a graduate transfer.
Thompson, Scott, McDonald and Williams came in together. They've been through a lot throughout their time in Columbus. They've been on Final Four and Elite Eight teams. But on Saturday, the day before the biggest game of this season, they were as relaxed as they've ever been. It looked like they were in their comfort zone.
“This is the first time we’ve all been up here since the Walsh game in 2011, October 2011," Thompson said. "It’s been a while.”
They cracked jokes on one another. They told stories of themselves and described their relationship with head coach Thad Matta. They were totally in their comfort zone.
When asked who his favorite was amongst the seniors, Thompson quickly dismissed Williams.
“I don’t really like Amir because freshman year Amir — I want this on the record — freshman year he borrowed my copy of Bad Boys, the DVD, and he never returned it," Thompson said. "We’ve been neighbors now for two or three years and he won’t let me come back and get it, so Amir’s out the question."
Perhaps Williams never returned Thompson's movie, though, because of what he, Scott and McDonald did to him during that same year.
“My freshman year when we were still in the dorms my mom used to send me care packages because you know we was low on food and stuff at times. I had these fruit snacks that I used to love all the time and all three of them would come in my room when I’m not there and steal my food," Williams said. "They would steal fruit snacks, drinks, cookies, everything. That just made me upset and not like them for two or three weeks at a time."
Scott interrupted, saying: “The reason we would steal them is because he wouldn’t give them to us. We would ask every day, ‘Can we have one?’ and he would say no. So when he would take a shower, Trey would call me up and say, ‘He’s out the room, let’s go get them.”
Scott, Thompson, McDonald and Williams have been criticized throughout their four years at Ohio State. Many have questioned their lack of development over their time as Buckeyes. Scott and Williams were both McDonald's All-Americans and Thompson was another highly-recruited guy.
There may be some validity to that, sure. They haven't been exactly that throughout their college careers. But there's no disputing the fact the four of them have won a ton of games at Ohio State.
And on Sunday, against one of the top teams in the country, they have an opportunity to win one more in the final home game of their careers.
"I think we just want to be remembered as a team that just did our part for the school, just kept the tradition going," McDonald said. "We don’t want to be the class that there was a drop-off with. So just keep the winning tradition alive and going well.”
