Just three days removed from their worst loss in years, the Ohio State Buckeyes had a chance to redeem themselves Tuesday night.

On the road in front of a packed crowd inside Mackey Arena, the Buckeyes earned that redemption by beating the Purdue Boilermakers 74-64.

Ohio State (12-3) shot a blistering 56 percent from the field against Purdue (7-8) just three days removed from its 33 percent outing in a 19-point loss to Illinois. Only two of the eight Buckeyes who saw the court shot under 50 percent Tuesday night, and four players shot over 60 percent in Ohio State’s first true road victory of the year.

Deshaun Thomas, who scored a game-high 22 points, talked about Ohio State’s offense after the game, "We came out with toughness and our offensive execution was going well. We knew we needed to do that after the Illinois game and that's what we did. We came out with toughness and executed really well."

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Ten years since Tempe, 1/3/2003.

I know it’s hard to believe, but Thursday marks ten years since Cie Grant blitzed off the left side, grabbed Ken Dorsey by the jersey, and spun him to the ground, as the Miami quarterback’s desperation pass fell harmlessly to the turf...and the Buckeye celebration began...

….ten years since the hopes of OSU fans were dashed by a 4th down incompletion in the first overtime, only to be rescued a moment later by a belated, but ultimately correct pass interference call....

...a full decade since Maurice Clarett criticized his school’s administration in a pre-game press interview...only to redeem himself with an overtime touchdown and a remarkable heads-up play that turned the game’s momentum 180 degrees...stripping the ball from Miami safety Sean Taylor after Taylor’s end zone interception killed an OSU 1st-and-goal situation early in the 3rd quarter...

...the Mike Doss interception...the gruesome injury to Willis McGahee...the gritty performance of Craig Krenzel...the spectacular end-zone catch by Kellen Winslow Jr...the 4th and 14 completion to Michael Jenkins.....Matt Wilhelm’s crunching hit on Dorsey in overtime...

It's fair to say there has been no moment as sweet for northeast Ohio sports fans since that night. 

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After suffering tough losses to Duke and Kansas during non-conference play, the Buckeyes finally opened up league play in Columbus last night.

Ohio State kicked off its campaign for a fourth straight Big Ten title in dominant fashion, defeating the Nebraska Cornhuskers 70-44 in front of a moderate crowd at Value City Arena.

Deshaun Thomas was outstanding, scoring 18 points in the first half on his way to notching a game-high 22 for the Buckeyes. The junior forward added eight rebounds, two assists and a steal to his stat line as he guided Ohio State to the 26-point victory.

“I was really happy with Deshaun because they threw something defensively at him that was a little different,” Ohio State coach Thad Matta said after the game. “He and the other guys handled it really well. We seemed to have more of an understanding of what we needed to do every time we went down the court.”

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Ohio State struggled early -- possibly hung-over from Christmas break or its loss to Kansas last Saturday -- but the Buckeyes responded in a big way with an 87-44 rout over Chicago State.

Deshaun Thomas scored a game-high 17 points, LaQuinton Ross scored 15 and a trio of guards (Aaron Craft, Lenzelle Smith, Jr. and Amedeo Della Valle) scored in double digits to help Ohio State secure its third 40-point victory of the season.

After shooting a miserable 31 percent in their eight-point loss to Kansas, the Buckeyes scorched the nets against Chicago State by shooting 57 percent from the field.

"When we made our first shot today, I turned to the coaches and said, 'Hey, we're 1 for 1. That's 1,000 percent. This is awesome,'" Ohio State coach Thad Matta said.

Craft elaborated, “Our shooting was better this game compared to the last few games when you look at our percentages. We are taking our shooting game a lot more seriously because we can not expect to make our shots during games without practicing them more.”

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Ohio State’s game against Winthrop Tuesday night was supposed to be a final tuneup before the Buckeyes host the No. 9 Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday.

The Eagles (4-5) gave the Buckeyes (9-1) a much bigger fight than expected, battling for all 40 minutes in a 65-55 Ohio State victory.

“You have to give Winthrop a ton of credit,” Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. “They played to win tonight.”

Deshaun Thomas was erratic, shooting just seven of 21 from the field, but that didn’t stop Ohio State’s leading scorer from posting a game-high 21 points.

The Buckeyes’ offensive performance as a whole reflected Thomas’ as the team shot just 39 percent from the field on their way to scoring a season-low 65 points.

“I wasn’t ready mentally and I knew my shots were not going in,” Thomas said after the game.

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Ohio State coach Thad Matta wanted his team to continue the success it found against its last opponent -- Long Beach State -- after two miserable shooting performances against Duke and Northern Kentucky.

Doing so would require an outstanding performance against one of the better defensive teams in the country in Savannah State, who held Florida’s high-flying offense to a season-low 58 points earlier this year.

The Buckeyes answered in a big way Wednesday night, shooting 48 percent from the floor and 53 percent from the 3-point line in an 85-45 demolition of the Savannah State Tigers.

Four Buckeyes scored in double digits, led by Deshaun Thomas’ game-high 22 points. Thomas scored 21 of his 22 points in the first half and talked about the passion his team took to the court after the game.

"If we have great pace to our offense things will go well. The one thing coach preached before the game was having passion,” Thomas said. “And we had passion out there."

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The No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes defeated the Northern Kentucky Norse 70-43 Saturday night, improving to 5-1 on the year after their close loss to Duke last Wednesday.

The 27-point victory seemed to be just what the doctor ordered, but Thad Matta was singing a different tune after the game.

"The number one thing I wanted to see is if we would get up off the mat and have a little fight to us," Matta said. "I don't think we were as effective that way as I wanted to be."

A number of issues came up in Ohio State’s loss to Duke, including some poor shooting from the team and a lack of trust in the bench from the coaching staff.

The Buckeyes’ shooting woes continued. After hitting on just 34 percent of its shots in Cameron Indoor Stadium, Ohio State only shot 38 percent from the field against Northern Kentucky. Sam Thompson was the only starter to shot over 50 percent (three of five from the field for 10 points) against the Norse. None of the other four starters shot over 33 percent from the field.

Ohio State’s leading scorer, Deshaun Thomas, only scored 14 points despite taking 14 shots. He talked about the Buckeyes’ shooting struggles, "We didn't come out putting it in the hole. But, you know, it's us staying together and preparing in practice and shooting the ball well."

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They’re perfect, but obviously not without flaws.   It really ends up being a the best case scenario for Urban Meyer in his first season at Ohio State, but people are going to argue the merits of it and whether it should be over already.  He’s the third head coach the program has had in three years, and he’s done one of the things (defeat Michigan) that the Buckeye faithful needed him to do in one try.  That used to be a big problem (for an Ohio State Head Coach), but it’s becoming a distant memory; that’s something that is becoming a little under-appreciated, perhaps.  But, there is, of course, the pink elephant in the room.

There’s Golden Pants for sale, fried chicken, marijuana, tattoos, a supplemental draft pick, and a web of lies that cannot be easily untangled.  There are lawyers that should be disbarred, Memorial Day resignations, a University President that no one respects, an Athletic Director that’s still employed, interstate test drives, and an interim head coach.  There are two-game suspensions that become five-game suspensions, and five-game suspensions that become ten-game suspensions, and blue chip recruits that disgracefully sever ties with the school of their choice.  And thousands of miles away, there’s me, wondering if I can, should, or will be a fan of this team ever again.

However, this isn’t a tale of me, a sweater vest, or a man from Ashtabula.  No one man is bigger than a program, let alone an entire state university, but some have bigger roles in the story than others.  This particular story begins one year ago, or ten years ago, or 310 days before we were sure there was a story at all.

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Ohio State’s 26-21 victory over Michigan Saturday afternoon played out much like the entire 2012 season. The Buckeyes were uneven, sloppy and at times exasperating against a Wolverine team they badly outplayed for most of the day. But, just as they’ve been in every single game this season, they were ultimately successful.

It wasn’t easy, though- not as easy as it could have been, at any rate. In the first half Ohio State’s season-long defensive bugaboos of poor pursuit angles and lousy tackling led to big plays by the Michigan offense. In the second half, while the defense clamped down on the Wolverines, the offense went into the tank with clock-management problems and blown opportunities in opposing territory. Penalties and turnovers were issues all day for Urban Meyer’s team.

Yet at the end of it all, everything worked out. The coaching staff made the right adjustments defensively. The offensive line and Carlos Hyde stepped up and controlled the trenches in crunch time. Even the enemy Wolverines chipped in with some questionable play-calling and use of personnel in the second half. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is winning- and the Ohio State Buckeyes, as imperfect as they’ve looked at times, are a perfect 12-0.

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The Big Ten Championship Game will be played this Saturday night in Indianapolis with Nebraska and Wisconsin competing for the Stagg Trophy (formerly known as the Stagg-Paterno Trophy). It’s a rematch of the teams’ meeting in late September, won by the Cornhuskers 30-27 in Lincoln, in one of their numerous 4th quarter comebacks of 2012.

Back in August, the Leaders Division preview predicted that Ohio State would win the division and force the conference to field something less than their best two teams in the second annual title game, and that’s how it turned out. (The Legends preview wasn’t nearly as prescient...I liked the Spartans)  

Small wonder then, that the championship game of an unusually weak conference is eliciting a large national yawn by featuring the Badgers, with their 4-4 Big Ten mark, and a 7-5 overall record, against a Nebraska team that has already beaten them once, but that also gave up 63 points in a loss to the undefeated Buckeyes.

But so be it. This is what Ohio State and their fans signed up for in 2012. A low-stress bowl season. Enjoy...and let the rest of Big Ten country savor a postseason without Ohio State. It’s the future of OSU under Urban Meyer that they have to worry about.

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