Archive for the ‘Ohio State’ Category

Two B1G transfers find their new schools

Published by Source on May 15th, 2012

Two former B1G players announced where they were headed next on Tuesday. Minnesota transfer Chip Armelin tweeted that he had officially signed to play at Southern Mississippi out of Conference USA. Around the same time, former Ohio State Buckeye JD Weatherspoon announced that he would transfer within the state to a MAC school, Toledo.

Chip Armelin is originally from Louisiana and signed with the Gophers out of high school. Tubby Smith was the only power conference coach to offer Armelin, who chose Minnesota over Louisiana Tech and North Texas. In his two seasons as a Gopher, Armelin averaged 4.8 points and 1.8 rebounds in 12.5 minutes. He saw his minutes go up his sophomore year but decided to leave the program in early April. Giving up his scholarship actually cleared room for Gophers’ star Trevor Mbakwe, who was granted a 6th year of eligibility after missing a majority of the last season to an ACL tear.

The Golden Eagles of Southern Miss enter next season with a new coach, former Morehead State coach Donnie Tyndall. In his six seasons at MSU, Tyndall won two OVC tournament titles that translated to two NCAA tournament appearances. The highlight of his tenure may have been the Eagles’ first round upset of 4th seed Louisville in the 2011 Tournament, led by senior sensation Kenneth Faried (now with the Denver Nuggets).

Back on April 16, Buckeyes JD Weatherspoon and Jordan Sibert announced their intentions to leave the program. Both are Ohio-natives that came to OSU as nationally-ranked high school prospects. Weatherspoon is actually from Columbus, playing alongside Buckeye star Jared Sullinger at Northland HS. He was a late addition to Thad Matta’s impressive 2010 recruiting class, which was headlined by Sullinger and DeShaun Thomas, but he struggled to find his place in the Buckeye rotation. He averaged just 2.7 points in 6.0 minutes last season, appearing in just 10 games before being ruled academically ineligible for the rest of the year.

Last week, it was announced that Sibert was headed to the Dayton Flyers out of the Atlantic 10. Weatherspoon will also remain in the Buckeye state, heading to the up-and-coming Toledo Rockets. In just his second season, head coach Tod Kowlczyk was able to turn a 4-28 team into a 19-17 squad that finished 2nd in the MAC West. Last season was capped off by an appearance in the CIT, where the Rockets advanced to the second round. Toledo has not been to the NCAA Tournament since 1980 but have made several NIT appearances since then.

 

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Posted in featured, Minnesota, Ohio State
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2012 B1G/ACC Challenge Match-ups Announced

Published by Source on May 14th, 2012

The match-ups have been announced for next season’s B1G/ACC Challenge. There will be twelve games featuring all twenty-four teams in the two conferences. In what will be the 14th annual event, the B1G will attempt to win its 4th straight after losing the first 10.

ESPN’s preseason #1 Indiana Hoosiers will host the #11 North Carolina Tar Heels in one of the two headlining games of the event. The other features an up and coming #6 NC State Wolfpack team traveling to Ann Arbor to take on the #8 Michigan Wolverines in what may be an early season top-10 match-up if the preseason rankings hold. Both of those games will be on Tuesday, November 27. The following day, the headliner is surely the #5 Ohio State Buckeyes at the #15 Duke Blue Devils. Coach K’s squad will be looking for revenge after getting destroyed in Columbus this past season.

Here are all 12 match-ups:

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Posted in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin
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Transfer rundown: 3 guys have new homes

Published by Source on May 12th, 2012

Several players have announced their plans to transfer since the season came to a close, and in the past week three of those guys have made their decisions. We are a bit late with the first two guys, but it was made official today that former Notre Dame guard and Northbrook, IL-native Alex Dragicevich is headed to Boston College.

- Former Illini Crandall Head will follow his old assistant coach Jerrance Howard to SMU. New Mustangs coach Larry Brown is looking to turn the program around and brought in Howard to help recruit. Head is the younger brother of Illinois star Luther Head and a native of Richton Park, Illinois. Though he was highly-touted out of high school, Head never really found his place in Champaign and appeared in just 9 games last season. He will sit out the upcoming season per NCAA rules and have two seasons of eligibility remaining after that.

- Once a top high school prospect, Jordan Sibert is now leaving the Ohio State Buckeyes for the Dayton Flyers of the Atlantic 10 Conference. Sibert averaged just 3.0 points per game as a sophomore and will head to Dayton with two seasons of eligibility remaining. Sibert was a part of Thad Matta’s blockbuster 2010 recruiting class, alongside Jared Sullinger, Aaron Craft and DeShaun Thomas. Also in that class was JD Weatherspoon, who announced his plans to transfer with Sibert but has yet to find his next destination.

- As mentioned above, Notre Dame sharp-shooter Alex Dragicevich is headed to the East Coast. The Glenbrook North High School graduate will also have two years of eligibility remaining after sitting out next season with the Eagles. Dragicevich chose BC over hometown Loyola (Chicago). He averaged 6.6 points in 20.9 minutes for the Irish last season but decided to transfer because he saw himself getting less minutes in the future.

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Posted in Chicago HS Prospects, Illinois, Notre Dame, Ohio State
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Ohio State lands 2012 Italian guard

Published by Source on May 2nd, 2012

Thad Matta got his first verbal commitment for the class of 2012 just under two months shy of the start of summer classes. Shooting guard Amadeo Della Valle signed with the Buckeyes Wednesday to become the sole member of the 2012 class. The Alba, Italy-native played for Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada alongside top prospects Anthony Bennett, Brandon Ashley, Dominic Artis and others.

The star-studded roster may have led to a number of schools overlooking the Italian guard, but Della Valle is a great late addition to the Ohio State roster. He committed back on April 27th following a visit to Columbus, choosing the Buckeyes over Arizona and Texas A&M.

The Buckeyes are losing quite a bit, with William Buford graduating and Jared Sullinger headed for the NBA, but they should be able to compete in the B1G once again. A pair of juniors – point guard Aaron Craft and wing DeShaun Thomas – will be a tough 1-2 punch for Matta. Della Valle is in position to earn some minutes right away, as he is one of just four scholarship guards on the OSU roster. It will be especially beneficial for the freshman to play behind a guy like Craft to help get acclimated with B1G play.

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Posted in Ohio State
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B1G Transfers and Returns

Published by Source on April 16th, 2012

Several B1G players have announced that they are leaving or returning to their respected programs in the last 24 hours. Below you can find a list of the most recent moves:

* Ohio State sophomore J.D. Weatherspoon will be leaving the Buckeye program. The forward is a Columbus-native and played high school ball with OSU teammate Jared Sullinger. Weatherspoon played just 6 minutes per game this season and averaged 3.0 points and 1.1 rebounds.

* Purdue junior John Hart announced that he will use his final season of eligibility at another school. Hart will graduate at the end of this season and will be immediately eligible to play at any out of conference school if his graduate program of choice is not offered at Purdue. The guard has seen his minutes decline in each of his seasons with the Boilers and he averaged just 1.6 ppg in 5.3 mpg as a junior.

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Posted in Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio State, Purdue
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John Groce hired at Illinois

Published by Source on March 29th, 2012

After a long and somewhat troubling search, Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas has hired Ohio University head coach John Groce to be the next Illini men’s basketball coach. After the job was reportedly turned down by the likes of Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens, Thomas turned to what some media members call his sixth-choice in Groce. But regardless of how he got there, Groce is headed to Champaign with the goal of getting the Illini back in the top half of the conference and into the NCAA Tournament.

Groce seemed like a logical candidate from the beginning – a mid-major coach with ties to the area and conference that has tournament success and a proven winning record. In his four seasons at Ohio, Groce took the Bobcats to 2 NCAA Tournaments, including a Sweet Sixteen run this March. Before landing in Athens – his first head coaching job – Groce spent eight total seasons as an assistant to Thad Matta at Butler, Xavier and Ohio State. He was on the Ohio State staff in 2007 when the Buckeyes lost to Florida in the National Championship game.

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Posted in Illinois, Ohio State
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Revisiting My Preseason Predictions

Published by Source on March 21st, 2012

With the regular season finished and postseason tournaments in full swing, it is time to take a look back at the predictions I posted the day before this college basketball season began. I went game-by-game to predict wins and losses, tallied them up and listed the teams from 1-12. Needless to say, I did not do that well.

The first thing that jumps out is that the B1G really beat up on each other in conference play, with a lot of teams at the top of the standings losing to teams at the bottom. No team dominated the season the way that I (and many others) expected Ohio State to do.

It was not all bad, though, as I was pretty spot on with my non-conference records. For most teams, I only missed 2 or 3 non-conference games (I missed 4 for Penn State, but was perfect for Minnesota and only missed 1 each for Michigan State, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin). Below, you will see a couple different lists. The first is the side-by-side of my predicted conference standings and the actual conference standings. Next, you will see a team-by-team breakdown of the records I predicted so that you can see how wrong/right I was. NOTE: I do not include conference tournament games, as those would have been impossible to predict before the season. NOTE 2: 3-way tie in actual B1G standings, but I listed the 3 teams in the order they were seeded in the conference tournament.

PREDICTED:                       ACTUAL:

1 – Ohio State                  T-1 – Michigan State

2 – Michigan                   T-1 – Michigan

3 – Wisconsin                 T-1 – Ohio State

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Posted in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin
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The 2012 NCAA Bracket is out!

Published by Source on March 12th, 2012

Congrats to all 68 teams that were fortunate enough to have their name called tonight! Six teams from the B1G received spots in the field, as well as local Big East teams Marquette and Notre Dame. Below, you will find a breakdown of who is playing who, where they are playing, and what day the game is on.

UPDATE: Times/broadcasts have been added at the end of each game description.

Michigan State – The Spartans got the 4th 1-seed in this year’s field after beating the Ohio State Buckeyes in this afternoon’s conference title game. Tom Izzo leads his Michigan State squad into the NCAA Tournament for the 15th straight season and this is the 4th time that they have been a 1-seed in that span. This year, the Spartans sit atop the West Region and will face NEC Champion LIU-Brookyln in the first round (Columbis, OH). A first round win will result in a match-up with either Memphis or Saint Louis over the weekend. [9:20pm/8:20cst on TBS]

Ohio State – Despite losing in the conference title game, the Buckeyes were given a 2-seed in this year’s East Regional (Syracuse is the 1). They will face off with 15-seed MAAC winner Loyola (MD) in the first round and would face either 7-seed Gonzaga or 10-seed West Virginia after that. Those games will be played in Pittsburgh. This is the 6th NCAA berth in head coach Thad Matta’s 8 seasons in Columbus and the 3rd time the Buckeyes have been a 2-seed in that time. They were also a top seed twice, including last season. [9:50/8:50p on TNT]

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Posted in featured, Indiana, Marquette, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin
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B1G Tournament Bracket

Published by Source on March 7th, 2012

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Posted in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin
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B1G Announces Year-End Award winners

Published by Source on March 5th, 2012

The B1G Conference has released their year-end award winners and all-conference teams. There are two sets of winners, one chosen by the twelve B1G coaches and one chosen by a select group of media members. Congrats to all of the honorees!! You will find the full lists below:

COACHES:

All-B1G First Team: Jordan Taylor (Wisconsin), Robbie Hummel (Purdue), John Shurna (Northwestern), Draymond Green (Michigan State), Jared Sullinger (Ohio State)

All-B1G Second Team: Trey Burke (Michigan), Tim Frazier (Penn State), William Buford (Ohio State), DeShaun Thomas (Ohio State), Cody Zeller (Indiana)

All-B1G Third Team: Keith Appling (Michigan State), Brandon Paul (Illinois), Matt Gatens (Iowa), Tim Hardaway Jr. (Michigan), Drew Crawford (Northwestern)

All-B1G Freshman Team: Trey Burke (Michigan), Dave Sobolewski (Northwestern), Branden Dawson (Michigan State), Aaron White (Iowa), Cody Zeller (Indiana)

Honorable Mention: Meyers Leonard (Illinois), Christian Watford (Indiana), Aaron Craft (Ohio State), Jared Berggren & Ryan Evans (Wisconsin)

Player of the Year: Draymond Green (Michigan State)

Coach of the Year: Tom Izzo (Michigan State)

Freshman of the Year: Cody Zeller (Indiana)

Defensive Player of the Year: Aaron Craft (Ohio State)

Sixth Man of the Year: DJ Byrd (Purdue)

*media selections after the jump*

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