Sunday, December 6, 2009

December 5th. A Date That Will Live In OSU Basketball Infamy


(The title of this post is meant in no way to trivialize the real date of infamy, PH. But sometimes a gross over-exaggeration is needed to convey the extreme feeling of disappointment that is currently occurring.)

10:30 AM Eastern Time - I slept in a little after some some late night basketball viewing following a night out. (Mullens & Harris had decent performances in their respective D-League games). Decided to get a late morning meal, and when I got back home I remembered that my Ohio State Buckeyes were supposed to be playing a game around the same time. But I was not in much of a hurry because I saw that they were playing a scrub team in Eastern Michigan, plus John Wall & Kentucky were battling North Carolina on another channel. But when I finally turned to ESPNU to watch my guys, the image of Evan Turner laying on back is what welcomed me.

My first reaction was what happened?!? I wanted to see a replay, well I would get to see a replay alright, about 7 of them...and each one was painful to view. ET landed squarely on his lower back after a dunk attempt gone wrong. For the next hour the Buckeye Nation patiently waited for an update, and speculated for the best. But it turned out that Evan suffered broken bones in his back that will keep him out for the next eight weeks. Upon receiving this news, I immediately thought about David Lighty's injury against a scrub team last year. Now Coach Matt will once again have to navigate a thin team through a treacherous early Big Ten schedule. Just some bad luck huh?

10:15 PM Eastern Time - Fast forward to the night. Still a little salty about Turner, but attempted to take the mind off that with some college football viewings. All the pizza was downed, and I was actually getting a little sleepy. The NBA schedule that night was a little unusual as there were really no entertaining match ups.

The Portland vs Houston game was the only game I was waiting for. So before dosing off I headed to my PC to watch the big fella play, and what was the first image that I viewed? The horrific scene of Greg Oden clutching his left knee & grimacing in pain. This time I only needed one replay to see Oden's reaction and conclude that this one was bad. The big man was carted off on a stretcher, teammates consoling him, crowd chanting Oden..but to a man everyone had a feeling of sadness. An hour passed, another update. Left patella, surgery, likely out for the season. Words cannot describe the sick feeling that I had last night. Much more on Greg Oden after the 2nd International update.

Why? - I don't know why the basketball gods decided to have Ohio State's current best player, and Ohio State's current best former player fall to injuries on the same day. But it sure seems like Ohio State has had one too many of these 'unlucky' days. The feeling we have on this Sunday morning is worse than that following any kind of blowout or title loss. As fans we are used to seeing these players fall down and get back up time and again. But we are ultimately always hit with the reality that is the health of these athletes that allows them to entertain us with their extraordinary talents. And it really sucks to see this happen to two of the nicest guys in sports. I expect a whole lot of good karma to come our way for the next decade because we've taken some big blows recently. A lot more on these two later.

-B3-

1 comment:

  1. Great blog...don't forget Mike Redd has been out most of the year...My Redd and Oden OSU jersey are hanging in my closet and I am angry. Does God hate the Buckeyes???

    ReplyDelete

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