Ohio State women’s basketball: Buckeyes upset Tennessee
Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I hope, unlike Nick Young, you realized that the NBA was off last night for Election Day.
In today’s SI:AM:
? The historically young USMNT
? Analyzing the latest CFP rankings
? The Astros owner’s insult to his manager and GM
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A statement win in Columbus
While the college basketball season started Monday, there haven’t been that many marquee games. Only two games thus far in men’s and women’s Division I have featured two ranked teams: The No. 21 Creighton women beat No. 23 South Dakota State, 78–69, on the road Monday, and last night, the No. 5 Tennessee women were dominated by No. 14 Ohio State in Columbus. Buckeyes fans stormed the court after the win.
The Buckeyes won 87–75, but that 12-point margin doesn’t tell the whole story. Tennessee turned the ball over a staggering 29 times against Ohio State’s full-court press, compared to 15 for OSU. Jordan Horston, one of Wilton Jackson’s preseason player of the year candidates, had a team-high 20 points and 13 rebounds for Tennessee but also led the way with seven turnovers. (You can watch the highlights here.)
“The game went kind of the way we wanted,” Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff said after the win. “We wanted to make it very much up-tempo. We wanted to press them, to speed them up and not let them get comfortable in the half court. I thought we were kind of doing that; we just weren’t making any shots in the first half, so we couldn’t get into the press enough.”
According to ESPN, it was the first time that a women’s team ranked in the top five lost its season opener to a team ranked outside the top five since 2008. That was the most notable result from the first two days of games, but here are some other outcomes that caught my eye.
Men’s: Georgetown 99, Coppin State 89 (OT)
Patrick Ewing’s time at Georgetown might be running out. The Hoyas went winless in conference play last season, running up a 21-game losing streak before barely squeaking by lowly Coppin State (No. 277 in Kevin Sweeney’s rankings) last night.
Women’s: Oklahoma 105, Oral Roberts 94
It looks like Wilton and Ben Pickman were right when they wrote in their preseason rankings that Oklahoma (who they put at No. 14) has “what should be a high-powered offense.” The Sooners had five players score at least 13 points in their season-opening win, although they probably would have liked to have held Oral Roberts, a mediocre Summit League team last year, to fewer points. (Shout out to Golden Eagles sophomore forward Tirzah Moore, though. She had 25 points and 17 rebounds.)
Men’s: Houston 83, Northern Colorado 36
I don’t care who you’re playing. When you hold a team to 36 points on 25.6% shooting, that’s impressive. Houston is a national title contender (coming in at No. 3 in Sweeney’s preseason rankings) thanks to…
Read More: Ohio State women’s basketball: Buckeyes upset Tennessee 2022-11-09 15:27:25