The Front Row

Now is the time for the Bucks to catch fire....,.........

Amazing the way they played the 2nd half. Craft drove and scored time and time again in 2nd half. Used to always play zone under Matta because we werent good defensively. By and large this is one of Mattas better teams on defense. Shot selection on offense is puzzling a lot, esp when we have no one in rebound position. I will take it though. A nice signature win for the good guys.

We learned our RPI and BPI should receive a huge boost after two wins over top 15 RPI teams. I would guess we'll be just outside the Top 12 in the polls. Northwestern has no business losing to us by anything less than double digits on Thursday.

Huge win for the Buckeyes. Not only a big win but a win against a good team when Thomas isn't at his best. Just think how dangerous Craft would be if he could hit an open 3. It was nice to see a ton of people contribute. And it was good to see Ravenal do something positive but I want Williams still starting. When Ravenal starts he actually thinks he is a primary option which is bad news for us. And Williams defends the post better. While i agree he has some slippery paws, that pass at the end of the first half was Scott's fault. Why in the world would he go screaming down the lane out of control and throw a pass to Williams just below the free throw line? Neither Craft nor Thomas touched the ball there. He did the same thing late in the game flying down the lane and missing a tough layup when Thomas was spotted up in the corner. Overall, very gritty performance by the Buckeyes when they needed it most. With the right draw and the defense we are capable of playing we could make a run in the tournament.

Everyone always jumps on me when I criticize Craft because for some reason he has become blameless. His offense at times has lost us games in big situations. I've never doubted that Craft could be above average offensively. It's on him for not stepping up to the challenge for the role we needed him. This performance shows you how good this team can be when Craft shows up. You can talk about defense until your blue in the face with Craft (no one gives others enough credit for their individual defense), but he has to produce offensively. PG is too important to have a glorified defensive specialist. Lets see if he can build.

Quietly, Sam Thompson has become arguable our best individual defender. People will continue to bash Amir, but I see him changing shots defensively, which has a huge impact. This game, this team, and Craft all leave us with same questions. Can they carry this forward or will they regress? As for Matta, he once again comes up big time late in the year. Anyone who says the problem is Thad just is not paying attention.

And as often happens the refs swallowed their whistles when it came to a lower seeded team being fouled by a higher seeded team, otherwise Dayton would have been a final four team and the idiot Flyer admin may not have forced Don Donoher out. Velvet was a poor man's version of the future Michael Jordan and great fun to watch. Too bad he was just a bit too small for the NBA. Thanks for reminding me of that great run and why I haven't supported the hapless Flyers for 30 years now.

I ran into Donoher's daughter-in-law this past summer and she said he's still doing great, helping out at camps and advising coaches.

can't agree more, he plays decent D but that's it. Dude is a TURD. Brittany Griner's more of a man than he is.

This team lacks leadership and intensity as a whole. Craft is unquestionnably a great leader but he is the only source of leadership on this team. Craft brings the intensity every game as does Ravenal and Thompson. Thomas tries to lead and usually plays with intensity but he still forces his play some. Matta has done his usual great job of coaching other than in one area. He seems challenged to see combinations that at certain times of the game would give us a lift. I definitely agree that Ravenal needs about two thirds of the minutes versus Williams. In the non-conference part of the schedule we saw that Craft and Scott playing together gave us perhaps the best defensive guard combo in the country and that the two playing together definitely raised the tempo of the game. Yet when the confernence started we saw very little of the two together until just of recent. Lenzell Smith needs to start every game due to his potential but an early assessment has to be taken in each of his games as to how many minutes to give him as he is quite inconsistent a la Buford. We just have to accept that Thomas will never be the guy and at times will contribute to the struggles when he is forcing his game.

Minds right, check........Defensive intensity for 40 min, check......effort, check. Everything else takes care of itself because our offense feeds off of our ability to be succesful on the defensive side of the floor.

I personally did not expect a win, not with Sparty coming off of the loss. We matched their intensity and we played like we wanted it more.

When DT scores 2 pts in the first half and we are only down 6 then things are going pretty damn well.

Craft played his best game of the year and Ravenal came up huge. I have been saying all year that Ravenal should be getting the majority of the minutes. He is capable offensively he can be physical defensively and has a much higher bball IQ than Amir. The only thing that Amir provides is the ability to change the occasional shot in the paint but he negates that with stupid fouls. It is still competely mind boggling how sof Amir is on the offensive side. NO HANDS....unless he is WIDE FREAKING OPEN under the basket we should never ever ever throw him the ball....period.

Also, all season I have been harping on Scott playing the majority of the minutes at point. I do not know the final stats but Craft and Scott were on the floor a lot and Scott was running a lot of point. That needs to continue.....maybe it's me but in my opinion that line-up allowed Craft to be more aggressive on offensive and still maintain his defensive intensity.

LSJ....didn't really do anything but he came up huge with a 3 pointer later in the game. Other than that he was tossing up bricks. He needs to stick to penetrating the lane and drawing fouls. He can knock down the three but he needs to take those in the flow of the offense and not rushed.

Great win but I am not going to get overly excited until i see this type of play consistently (not necessarily Craft scoring 21). We cannot go to sleep Thursday against NW with IU looming.

Go Bucks! Congrats to Matta on another 20 win season!!! Glad he is our coach

We learned once again that if, and only if, this Team plays great Defense for 40 minutes, they can beat anyone.

We learned once again what a great player Craft can be when he is aggressive offensively. He took the ball to the Hoop consistently and that turned this game around.

It was amazing to watch Sparty not change on defense and continue to let Craft drive the rim... I thought that they would drop off and make Crtat dish the ball for an outside shot than to let him drive time and time.