Archives for March 2011

Tressel to sit out first five games, too

Johnny mentioned this in the comments of his post on the appeal results for the Tat-5, but it deserves its own post. From the Columbus Dispatch:

Ohio State and football coach Jim Tressel announced tonight that he will serve a five-game suspension for his role in the scandal that brought major NCAA violations to the university’s door.

The announcement came moments after the NCAA denied Ohio State’s appeal to reduce the five-game suspensions of five football players for selling memorabilia and accepting discounts on tattoos, a violation of the NCAA extra benefits rule.

Tressel had been suspended for two games and fined $250,000 by the university for his own violations, which came to light last week. A source told The Dispatch that it was his decision to increase his suspension to five games; his fine will remain the same.

“Throughout this entire situation my players and I have committed ourselves to facing our mistakes and growing from them; we can only successfully do that together,” Tressel said in a statement. “Like my players, I am very sorry for the mistakes I made. I request of the university that my sanctions now include five games so that the players and I can handle this adversity together.”

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said in a statement: “I have accepted his request and we are taking action to notify the NCAA. Until the NCAA has completed its investigation, we will not be publicly discussing the details of this case.”

Suspensions Upheld

INDIANAPOLIS ─ The NCAA Division I Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement has upheld the staff decision for five football student-athletes from The Ohio State University.

According to this decision, Mike Adams, Daniel Herron, DeVier Posey, Terrelle Pryor and Solomon Thomas must sit out the first five games of the 2011 season for selling awards, gifts and university apparel, as well as receiving improper benefits in 2009. These student-athletes must also repay money and benefits ranging from $1,000 to $2,500.

“While we are disappointed that our appeal request was denied, we respect the NCAA and accept its ruling,” said Gene Smith, Ohio State associate vice president and athletics director. “The players are sorry for the disappointment they have caused, will learn from their mistakes, and will strive to earn the confidence and support of everyone associated with the university through their future conduct.”

“The university remains steadfast in its commitment to continually improve the compliance education process,” said Dr. John Bruno, faculty athletics representative to the Big Ten and NCAA and Ohio State professor of psychology. “We believe that we do a good job in educating our more than 900 student-athletes, but we strive to do better to help them make good decisions.”

The reinstatement committee is the final appeal opportunity. The independent committee is composed of representatives from NCAA member colleges, universities and athletic conferences. It can reduce or remove the conditions, but cannot increase the conditions imposed by the staff.

Reinstatement decisions are made based on the collective facts of the case, withholding guidelines developed by the reinstatement committee, as well as any mitigating factors presented by the university.

More information on the NCAA student-athlete reinstatement process can be found on the NCAA’s website.

In Case You Missed It

Well it’s back to this.

It might be hard to believe but there is still a lot going on in Buckeyeland that doesn’t involve the basketball team crushing lesser teams and getting ready for a Final Four run. It includes Buckeye football.

Once a Buckeye, always a Buckeye? Let’s start off on a really good foot. Kirk Herbstreit. Poor Kirk Herbstreit. For some of us here at MotSaG, Kirk is still a Buckeye and for that is respected and loved. Others of us have given him the heave-ho, the final nails in the coffin being his naming the names of the Tat-5 during an ESPN bowl broadcast and the other being his indefensible final AP ballot. But we all believe that we would never do anything to the point of making him so uncomfortable in his own hometown that he would uproot his family and move OUT OF STATE. But that’s exactly what happened, and that’s a shame.

I also wonder if Tennessee fans will still be welcoming him after he makes some unkind remarks about their beloved Volunteers. Time will tell.

But, if your in the market for a multi-million dollar home, a couple just recently came available. One is Kirk’s and the other is Buckeye Hero Big Daddy Dan Wilkinson’s.

I’m sorry, so sorry People seem to think Jim Tressel owes them an apology and are looking for contrition from him during this scandal and they have been impatiently waiting for him to say he’s sorry. Happy, people?

Everybody does it It seems quaint at this point, but I was following this story about HBO doing a documentary/expose on what goes on in the dark recesses of college football recruiting. I first saw this when Ramzy tweeted a link to this story about Stanley McClover, a highly coveted DE recruit and Ohio State commit that strangely de-committed to Ohio State and switched his commitment to Auburn. That led to this revelation:

Specifically: former Auburn defensive end Stanley McClover allegedly has admitted that he received cash payments to attend Auburn and that the payments continued during his playing career on the Plains.

(more can be read here)

At this point it’s a rather tenuous position to try to take the higher ground as an Ohio State fan on any topic related to following the rules, but this tangentially involves Jim Tressel and is therefore relevant..

Oh yeah, and there was this, too.

In addition to these SEC scandals that may soon be brought to light, another area of interest going forward is going to be these 7-on-7 camps. Thayer Evans of Fox Sports has been writing up a storm about this topic and should be required reading. This is going to be big.

Just for fun Finally, we direct you to this post we put up shortly after Ohio State’s loss to Florida in the 2006 National Championship game. We kindly direct your attention to Jay’s comment.

Well, SCOREBOARD (via)

BCSketball?

Saint Mary’s basketball coach Randy Bennett was a upset Sunday upon learning that his team was apparently not one of the 68 best in nation. So upset, in fact, that he uttered one of the more nonsensical things heard that day (at least until Celebrity Apprentice hit the air): “Go to BCS. Go to something where there’s a standardized number how you figure out who’s in, who’s not.” The suggestion being that at least with the BCS, you know where you stand, there’s no mysterious group of people deciding your fate and…

…Wait, what?

All Bennett has proven with this comment is that he doesn’t understand how the BCS works. The system is at least two-thirds opinion–opinions of sportswriters or whoever votes in the Harris Poll, opinions of coaches who can’t even reasonably watch enough games to know what they’re talking about and then won’t even share their final votes with us. And it’s only two-thirds opinion if you buy that computer algorithms designed by humans (and most of which are not available for public dissection) are somehow free of bias or unable to be manipulated. Mysterious enough for you?

Bennett wants to rid tournament selection of human error, a noble goal, but also an impossible one. How exactly does one determine when “human error” has been made, especially in this case? What demonstrable method is available to illustrate the obvious (to Bennett anyway) truth that Saint Mary’s belongs in the tournament? There is none. Attempting to do so only opens a series of progressively absurd cans of worms:

What makes a schedule “strong”?
What makes an opponent “quality”?
What makes a team “deserving”?

Coach Bennett would argue that as long as every team is playing by the same rules, it doesn’t matter. But that’s impossible too. A Big East schedule is, by any reasonable measure, always going to be “tougher” than an Ivy League schedule. Right out of the gate, we’ve got favoritism.

That’s why the March Madness system is the best solution. All conference champions are included. That’s the most important step. Win your conference and you get a shot at the title. The power is entirely in each individual team’s hands and it’s 100% fair. If you can’t do that, you have no right to complain. You failed to secure your berth, and are now at the mercy of the at-large process, which in this case is a selection committee. If you want to make a case that the makeup of the committee is flawed, I would certainly listen and probably agree with you.

I would love to hear Bennett’s idea of a system for choosing at-large spots that would make everyone happy. But the truth is, no one wants to be left out, and it doesn’t really matter how you get left out or how many got in ahead of you. Expand the tournament to 96, 128, or 256 (Kinko’s has a deal on bracket binding) and you’ll still have someone fuming that their 20-loss team didn’t make it.

MotSaG 2011 NCAA Tournament Pick’Em

We’ll be doing the annual MotSaG NCAA Tournament Pick’Em again and we’d love to have you join us.

If you participated in last year’s contest, then you should be automatically re-invited. If you didn’t participate last year but would like to get in on the fun this year, drop a comment here (or hit us up on the Contact Form) and we’ll send you along an invite. A Yahoo! account will be needed.

Good luck! (And yes, you will be mocked for not penciling in Ohio State to the Championship game. The mocking will be so strong you’ll probably want to pack up your family and move to Tennessee.)

Gracious winners!

I will leave it to Thad Matta and the mens Buckeye basketball team to say all the right things after the Buckeyes just won their second straight B1G conference tourney. I am still upset over the lack of hardware the guys brought home from the media and coaches award show. I wonder how Jajuan Johnson and Matt Painter enjoyed being home today polishing those trophys they didnt earn? In the meanwhile the Buckeyes sewed up more trophies for their trophy case that they earned the hard way they played for them. No politics played in these trophies. The best thing about the B1G tournament for me is it gives us the ability to beast scUM and PSU 3 times in one season. There isnt many things better than that. So congrats to the Buckeyes for proving they were the best team in the B1G this year and that they had the best players in the B1G as well as the Best Coach.

On a side note I just saw the East Region Bracket and it looks like it will set up nicely for OSU to make a run to the Final Four. OSU has an early match up against either Texas- San Antonio or Alabama St. who have to play their way into playing OSU. The second round game for OSU is against either George Mason or Villanova both teams are good but easily beatable. In the 3rd round if the 4th seeded team wins their first 2 round game we will face Kentucky which will be tough but doable. Lastly the 2nd seed is North Carolina and the 3rd seed is Syracuse. If those teams win out and OSU does as well then one of them would play OSU in the Elite 8. Lastly in the Final 4 if Duke wins out they would play OSU if both no 1 seeds win out that is.

Overall OSU got the no.1 One Seed and I think got an actual pretty awesome grouping. The first 2 rounds for OSU will be in Cleveland and the next 2 rounds will be in Newark NJ.

B1G Championship Game Live Chat

Normally we’d direct you over to The BBC who has been graciously hosting these chats for like ever, but for a game of this magnitude we figured we could keep things “in-house” on this Championship Afternoon.

Also, feel free to use this as an open thread for any comments on the announcement of the NCAA Tournament brackets.

The Sky is Blue; Water is Wet

Ohio State beat Michigan at sports. Again.

With today’s 68-61 victory over the bad guys, the Buckeyes moved to 35-5 against the Wolverines in the top three sports (Football, Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball) under current coaches. Even if you’re one of those people who want Michigan to be good for the sake of the rivalry, you’ve got to admit that’s pretty awesome.

Today’s game played out like a lot of our basketball games do: Close for 25-30 minutes, Ohio State pulls away, opponent catches up but falls short. It’s always a little scary on those rare occasions when individual players get into early foul trouble since, as you may have heard once or twice, we’re not very deep. Aaron Craft and David Lighty spent a good deal of the first half on the bench after picking up a pair each, but Deshaun Thomas and Jordan Sibert filled in fine. If there’s anything to worry about in the Big One though, that would be it.

Tomorrow brings the Big Ten Championship game against Penn State, who just ousted Michigan State 61-48. It will be the Nittany Lions’ first appearance in the game.

Live Big Ten Tourney Blog

Going on over at The Buckeye Battle Cry.

This Day in History

One year ago today, arch-rivals Ohio State and Michigan met in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament.  With 2.2 seconds left to play, the Wolverines’ Manny Harris hit a jumper to take a 68-66 lead, securing the upset for 8-seeded Michigan over the Big Ten’s top team.

And then this happened:

Today, they meet again in the semi-finals. Watch your hearts, Wolverines.