The start of the 2010 College Basketball season is right around the corner. Ohio State, coming off a 29-8 record last year, tips off against North Carolina A&T on Friday, November 12.

The Buckeyes open the season ranked fourth in the AP poll and fifth in the USA Today poll. After their sweet 16 appearance in last year's NCAA Tournament, the Big Ten Media has selected the Buckeyes to finish second in the league behind Michigan State.

Many of the same faces that won Ohio State a Big Ten Conference Championship last year are back for another run at a title. One glaring exception from last year's roster is Evan Turner, the reigning Naismith Award winner and National player of the year. But even without Turner, there is a lot of talent on this team. Head coach Thad Matta has a solid combination of grizzled veterans and young talent, much like the 2006 team that made it all the way to the National Championship game.

Here is a brief overview of Ohio State's roster. *Projected Starters first:

Read more...

The BCeStimation is a weekly column that predicts which 10 teams will make it to the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Rose Bowl and National Championship game.

After reviewing the order in which the BCS bowls are allowed to select their teams, I made some adjustments to the BCeStimation. Here's how the selection process will play out:

The National Championship game has dibs on the number one and number two ranked teams in the country. The Rose Bowl has the automatic tie-in with the Big Ten and Pac 10, but if the Rose Bowl loses one of those conference champions to the National Championship Game, it has to select a Non-AQ team (TCU or Boise) if they're eligible. The Sugar Bowl would usually have a tie-in with the SEC Champion, but since I'm projecting that to be Auburn, they'll lose that automatic bid, earning the next two picks in the process. The Orange Bowl gets the next pick, and after their tie-in with the ACC champion, they get to select an at-large opponent. After the Orange, the Fiesta gets to pick an at-large team to face off against their automatic tie-in, the Big 12 champion.

 Make sense? Hopefully there will be more clarity once we get into the predictions.

Read more...

Contrary to what I cheerfully (and ignorantly) announced in last week’s column, the Ohio State Buckeyes did not play a football game on Saturday, against Penn State or anyone else. It was a mistake on my part, one Pete Fiutak certainly wouldn’t make; one I wouldn’t have made if only I’d checked the damned schedule at some point.

But enough with the self-flagellation. There were a lot of football games that were played on Saturday, some crucial- and with them a bit more clarity in the race for the BCS Championship Game. TCU certainly put its case on record; Alabama, meanwhile, saw its chances of a crystal-football repeat go down the drain in Baton Rouge.

These stories and a little bit more, on a truncated version of TWTW.

Game of the Week- Michigan/Illinois: Looking at the 67-65 final score you’d think it was Glen Rice and Rumeal Robinson versus the Flying Illini at Crisler Arena, not the descendants of Bo Schembechler on a November afternoon in the Big House. But the Michigan Wolverines are doing things differently on the gridiron these days. Mainly they’ve decided they can give up copious amounts of points and yardage yet still win football games. Saturday against Illinois, they were right. The teams combined for 1,237 total yards, with Michigan running up 676 while surviving five turnovers and the usual Denard Robinson injury.

Read more...

The BCeStimation is a weekly column that predicts which 10 teams will make it to the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Rose Bowl and National Championship game. 

Halloween weekend provided gruesome deaths for two of college football's undefeated teams. Both Missouri and Michigan State were routed on the road by ranked opponents. I'm not one to gloat, but I just want to point out the fact that I knew this was going to happen and totally called it in last week's article. So if everyone could just shoot me an email and tell me how awesome I am, that'd be great. This writing-machine feeds on props people, so give it up.

As a result of those two losses, the BCS picture becomes a little bit clearer going into November. And when I say a little bit clearer, I mean microscopic. Let's get to the predictions.

Orange Bowl: Virginia Tech vs. Pitt

Florida State makes an awful exit from the BCeStimation this week with their recent loss to North Carolina State. It's like when someone is walking out of a room you're in and farts right before they hit the door. Yeah, all of us reading this article are basically sitting in the mist of a Florida State fart. Something doesn't seem right about that.

Read more...