What We Learned: Duke 73, OSU 68

We need to get Ross on the floor for his offense.

No shame in losing to #2 Duke at their place, but, like the Football Buckeyes left on the field last Saturday in a winning effort, the Basketball Buckeyes left a lot of points on the court. But it is a shame because they should have won this game. Too many easy shots didn't find the bottom of the net. Once everyone settles into their roles this team may be very very good.

I am a huge Craft fan but he was not good tonight. I want to hear Lee's explanation but I don't know if Cook's quickness gave him problems. I even thought his defense was off. I was worried that Coach K might influence the refs to call it closely on Craft and he looked tentative. He didn't look good running the offense or on his drives. He will be given that runner in the lane a lot this year and must hit it. The Buckeyes as a whole looked too keyed up. Craft, Thompson, and Smith really put up some bricks. Amir Williams light is not coming on. There might not be a light bulb. I was hoping to see some improvement this year with Thompson and he played a good first half but got bodied out in the second. I was really hoping that he would hit the weights in the offseason and it looks like none of these guys did. This was really disappointing and I don't think they will beat Top 5 teams and I really feel they could....

We also learned that Ross needs to start over Thompson. Thompson has absolutely no offensive game at all. Anybody can dunk. He literally can not shoot. And lets not kid ourselves here, Craft hasn't been a good shooter since he's been here. Of course he will have a game where he goes off but most of the time he can not shoot. He needs to drive more and get to the line. Same as Smith and Thompson. We need more shooters. Deshaun is it. But I think we will be fine.

I think the same but only because it's the beginning of the season if I watched this same thing say later in the season against Indiana I wouldn't feel the same.

Good summary Dave. Although I wouldn't trade Matta for any other coach, I couldn't stop thinking that he cost us the game last night. It had nothing to do with anything he did or didn't do at Cameron though - he lost this game (and maybe the NC last year too) by choosing Shannon Scott over Trey Burke three years ago.

As much as I love Thad, the decision to pass on a local kid who played at Northland and All Ohio Red is a real head-scratcher to me. I know Scott was a McD's AA, but Thad must have seen Trey play 100 times. What didn't he like?

This team could really use a deep threat and if we had him last year...who knows?!

I still like this team a lot, I'm just pining for what could have been.

Go Bucks!

Those two shots Scott took on back to back possession and did not make one pass than missed made me cringe. Was Williams the best athlete on the court in High School and that is why he was so good? Loved the tOSU defense in the first half. Duke look very frustrated in the first half. THe announcers kept saying they are tired! I wonder if they where tired in the second half?

Despite some bad shot selection by our 2 point guards, the young Bucks still had a shot to win. DT needs to get more involved and Ross needs to be in there as he can score. Btw do Musberger and Bilas work for the Duke radio network? I have never heard so many excuses for Duke, you would think OSU was a lucky JV team the way they were saying Duke is fatigued, how about the 1st half, OSU took it to them, give some credit. Typical ESPN hate on OSU, very biased towards the Dukies. Also, Coach K sure whines a lot and it pays off as he gets a lot of calls. No excuses though, Bucks could have stolen one at Cameron. Hope they learn from it

Nice post once again Dave. Agree as ususal. Although calling Williams "one of the top prep players in America" is a stretch since he was ranked as the 50th best player. There was a reason his offers list was minimal.Many of these bigs develope late in this range.
Last night was the most selfish Ive seen the Bucks play since the Randy Ayers teams. Guards were 8 for 35 from the floor with 5 air balls and a dozen or so one-on-one fadaways.