They were very athletic. But the difference in this game came from beyond the arc. (Heath Schroyer coach called it) Melvin Goins put us over the top.

and the only thing more shocking than Ohio’s shooting was georgetown’s dysfunction on defense. it was truly horrible, like a group that had zero chemistry. bad switches, slow or non-existent help, and a stunning decision to basically never change up the defensive strategy that was killing them. our back court length should be a huge advantage, and to be frank, they have absolutely no one who can stand up to our front line.

i predict tennessee to the sweet 16, and it shouldn’t be close. sdsu was super physical and there will be none of that against ohio.

I’m not blaming Melvin for this bad decision in fouling the three point shooter. No one in the arena thought he’d be the goat. Why? He wasn’t even close to actually fouling the guy. Now to be fair, they didn’t show a replay in the arena. For those who had it on TV, was there actually a foul there? I thought it was the most absurd call on a night of many absurd calls (both ways).

That said, minus one airball on an ill-advised three, Melvin played flawlessly. By far our best player. Prince played a great, spacetime-bending first half, but he cooled off a bit in the second (this was probably the biggest difference in our play). Hopson was extremely hit and miss. Wayne and Brian didn’t shoot well, but both hit clutch FTs and came up with some extremely timely rebounds (especially Wayne).

In general, I felt like we were the better team for pretty much all of the night, but they just kept doing things to make the game close. They definitely have a good team and have nothing to be ashamed of, but the better team won.

And I was at the Ohio game. They’re a poor man’s Ole Miss. Their coach even looks just like Andy Kennedy (at least from the back). ZERO inside presence. Monroe scored at will inside (now G-town didn’t figure out he could do that until the second half). But Georgetown played sloppy on D, and Ohio shot 57% from three. That’s all three guys. Their two guards went 5/10 and 5/8 from three and one forward went 3/4. Because of that great outside shooting, they opened up the driving lanes in the second half. So, excellent guard play, good outside shooting, no inside game. Like I said, Ole Miss. But without SEC talent. Hard to believe they’ll be this hot again Saturday, but even if they are, I’m very confident that we will eat them alive inside.

Gregg Doyel’s bracket

Now, to be fair, he hardly counts as an expert. But he plays one (or tries to) on CBS.

These guys have done three things very well over their past 6 games, which includes a 4-0 run in their Tourney to get here and a big win over Georgetown:

• They get to the line. On the year the Bobcats get to charity stripe 23 (!) times per game and make 74% .. in the 6 game stretch it’s been 27 times and they’ve hit 75%. They are outscoring their opponents by an average of 10 points at the line in their 6 game streak.
• They can shoot lights. out. Holy Cow can they, or they have for all but 1 game in their run. Here’s what they have done: 9-18, 8-17, 6-16, 3-13, 8-17, and 13-23. That’s an average of about 8-17 total and 45%. They’ve shot over 45% four times in their past six games. Let’s hope they drop a Miami of Ohio and go 3-13 — a game they still won, btw.
• They can finish. They have two overtime wins in those games, one in the conference championship game against Akron.

Their only real weakness appears to be their relative small size: they have only one man, Senior Forward Kenneth van Kenthen, listed at over 6-8" — he is 6-10. Their starting 5 will likely look something like this: DJ Cooper 5-11 Freshman, Armon Bassett 6-2 Junior, Tommy Freeman 6-5 Junior, DeVaughn Washington 6-8 Junior, Kenneth van Kenthn 6-10 Senior. We should be able to take advantage of that — as I_S posted above, Wayne needs to gobble this up, and we need to shut them down inside.

Tennessee has shown to be very good at defending the arc this season — teams are shooting just 30% against us right now, and hopefully that trend will continue Saturday, but it will take effort — as every game in March does. What we cannot do is allow them to get to the line like they normally do.

@sethdavishoops on behalf of my teammates, I want to apologize for damaging your bracket. We still love u !

Doug Gottlieb picked us to beat Ohio. You could tell he really hated to do it, but he did.

Andy Katz backtracking:
“I think we forget the Vols had played well the week prior to the SEC semifinal game against Kentucky. So it really shouldn’t have been a surprise that Tennessee played well against San Diego State. The Aztecs aren’t Kentucky.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmjA2lp7r4Y&feature=related

Ohio appears to be a finesse, 3-pt shooting team. Definitely the type of team we should be using a man defense against, because we should be able to switch off against their guards without creating any size mismatches in their favor. Let’s take care of business.

Or making the “experts” eat their words?