Ohio State held their annual spring game Saturday, a combination football exhibition and recruiting showcase, as Braxton Miller and freshman receiver Mike Thomas grabbed the headlines on the field, and another blue-chip recruit succumbed to the allure of playing for Urban Meyer’s Buckeyes. Meyer was a visible presence all afternoon, staying close enough to the action to take a shotgun snap from center after firing up his troops with a one-on-one drill at midfield before the game.

Both teams came out throwing the ball, as Meyer had promised they would, and Miller’s Scarlet squad came out on top 20-14 with the help of Thomas’ 12 receptions for 131 yards. It didn’t escape notice after the game that OSU’s leading receiver had 14 receptions for the entire 2011 season. Meyer said last week that total was more like a game’s worth, and he set out to prove it Saturday.

Miller and backup Kenny Guiton combined for 57 pass attempts, against just 36 combined rushes. Miller and the Scarlet got 15 first downs passing, and only three running the ball, as Buckeye fans got their first look at Meyer’s no-huddle spread attack. Both quarterbacks established the pass to the perimeter early, opening up the short inside throws and seam passes to the tight ends.

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If you polled Buckeye players asking for the word to best describe spring football under Urban Meyer, the winning entry would probably be “intensity”. That’s the tone set by the coaches. That describes the pace of the practices. That’s the driving force behind turning everything they do - right down to their stretching - into a competition under Meyer. As senior fullback Zach Boren predicted at the outset of spring ball, “There is no on-off switch. Everyone will be going full-go, every play”.  And that’s exactly the way it has gone so far.

One thing the first-year Ohio State coach has made abundantly clear is that he will demand the same single-minded will to win in his players that he brings to the job himself. Speaking of identifying team leaders, Meyer had this to say: "We're looking for leadership by doing, by work ethic, by leading. I'm not interested in a bunch of group hugs or team meetings. I really want to see guys lead by not losing. You want to be a great leader, then go win."

It will be five months before he can begin erasing the bad memories from a disastrous season, but for now Meyer can be contrasted with his predecessor by how fast everything moves with him in charge.

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This year, I decided, was as good as any to skip the whole thing.  I didn’t fill out a bracket, which meant I wasn’t obsessing over things that mid-major powerhouses did well enough to scoot past a high-major with a mediocre basketball resume.  I wasn’t beating myself up over the conundrum of, “I want so and so to win, but I have blah-blah-blah in my bracket.”  For the most part, I did not have much concern for who was still standing on the final Saturday of March.

None of this is being written to say that I’m not a fan; nothing could be farther from the truth.  In most years, I’m glued to the tube for the conference tournaments, trying to determine the best back court that no one knows about, looking for a team that scratches and claws for every rebound, and identifying any potential Cinderella team that might just have a chance to stand on their own two feet after the opening weekend.  I have a system, and like the Blackjack player with big Vegas dreams, it’s usually a system with flaws.  This year, there would be no system; there would be no bracket.

Of course, I still wanted to weigh in with an opinion of some sort.  There were some things that I just really wanted to see happen, so I just floated some things out there.  Any take I had was almost immediately met with a question about my bracket, my Final Four, or who I thought would win it all.  Since I didn’t fill out a bracket, or even look at one, it was impossible to slate teams in a Final Four because I didn’t know who was in what region.  Picking Kentucky to win it all was a little bit easier because I don’t think anyone can beat them in a game that matters, regardless of what their path to and through New Orleans might have been.

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What a collapse.

The Ohio State Buckeyes had full command of the game in the first half -- leading at one point by 13 with all the momentum on their side. Even late in the game -- after a huge rally by Kansas -- the Buckeyes were able to push the lead back to six with five minutes to go.

They couldn’t hang on.

Too many bad shots down the stretch combined with too many easy baskets given up on defense allowed the Kansas Jayhawks to come from behind for a 64-62 victory.

“Down the stretch as this tournament goes, it comes down to making some plays,” Ohio State coach That Matta said. “Give them credit, they did a great job of finishing -- where we had the ball, had some great shots, and wasn't able to go in for us.”

For Kansas coach Bill Self, his goal was to keep his team focused on what they needed to do, "It's a 40-minute game," Self said. "There's no 13-point plays. You have to grind it and get one stop at a time."

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