Ohio State: A Basketball School with a Football Problem
Everyone is aware of those horribly awful gimmick t-shirts that explain how a certain university is a drinking school with a football problem. Heh! Get it? They are sold at school book stores around the land, probably costing students somewhere in the area of $17.99 that should instead be spent on actual books. Well, Ohio State should print out new shirts because they have turned into a basketball school with a football problem.
The once proud Buckeye nation was consumed by football until Terrelle Pryor and the always sweater-vested Jim Tressel did their thing. Now, Ohio State fans are still equally invested in football but there are three mitigating factors: They no longer want to admit this because of the embarrassment; their team is no longer any good, at least in regards to their former standards; lastly, Ohio State now has a much better team to root for in a different sport, namely, Jared Sullinger and the preseason top five Buckeye basketball team.
There have been other writers at other websites who have gone as far as writing that Ohio State basketball will win the National Championship this season. I would not go out on that limb, considering the players that this team lost from last year but OSU should certainly be expecting to make the Final Four in 2012, an expectation new and fun for a former football school who occasionally watched basketball games.
The return of Sullinger, who could have foregone his next three years in Columbus for the prospects of not playing in the NBA because of the lockout (nice choice Jared), means Ohio State has the best big man in the country ruling their low block. Now Sullinger is not the biggest big man, but like DeJuan Blair from a few years ago or, dare I say, Charles Barkley from many years ago, Sullinger is able to dominate a position usually slated for men much taller than he.
With the return of their go-to postman, as well as guards William Buford and Aaron Craft, OSU is in store for a tremendously successful season, one that may force those Columbus, OH bookstores to reprint shirts yet again exclaiming they now have a basketball school with no problems at all.
Read the in-depth preview for Ohio State basketball
