The No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes improved to 4-0 on the season Friday night, defeating the Missouri-Kansas City Roos 91-45 in Columbus.

The Buckeyes dominated early, starting the game with a 20-3 run where every member of Ohio State’s starting five scored. The Roos came out ice cold from the field, missing their first eight shots and 12 of their first 15. With about five minutes left to go in the first half, UMKC was never able to get the deficit below 20 points as the Buckeyes cruised to the 46-point victory.

“I was excited to see our guys play from start to finish,” Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. “Going into the game we didn’t want Kansas City to be comfortable on offense because they run their offense very well. We had to disrupt them, and I thought our guys did that very well.”

Very well indeed.

The Roos shot just 25.5 percent from the field against the Buckeyes and hit just one of their 15 3-point attempts. No UMKC player scored more than seven points, and Ohio State blocked 10 shot attempts.

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It’s all over but The Game for Ohio State. The best team in a weak Big Ten will get one more chance to show it this Saturday against Michigan, and then they’ll go home and watch the postseason on TV with the rest of us, either undefeated or at 11-1. All that matters is the bragging rights in the rivalry...so it’s not a matter of life or death...it’s more important than that. 

If Nebraska can get by Iowa on Friday, nothing that happens Saturday will matter to determine the Legends representative against Wisconsin in the title game...the Cornhuskers will be in. If Iowa pulls off the upset, and Michigan can beat the Buckeyes in Columbus, the Wolverines will punch their ticket to Indy for December 1.

If Michigan State can even their record at 6-6 at Minnesota on Saturday, then six of the seven Legends teams will be bowl eligible, with Iowa the only outsider. In the Leaders, Purdue needs a win over Indiana to get to six victories and join Wisconsin in postseason play. The addition of Maryland and Rutgers to the conference this week (beginning in 2014) does absolutely nothing  to elevate the credibility of the Big Ten as a football power.

To the weekend’s games...

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Northwestern 23 - Michigan State 20
The Wildcats finally won a close game they led in the 4th quarter, and the Spartans’ strange  failure to win at home continued. Michigan State (5-6, 2-5) has lost five times in East Lansing this season, including all four of their home Big Ten games. This game was 6-5 Northwestern at the half, and was tied at 13 and 20 in the second half, but Jeff Budzien of the Wildcats kicked a 27-yard field goal with 7:30 to play. From there Northwestern (8-3, 4-3) was able to force four straight incompletions by Spartan QB Andrew Maxwell (22/46, 297 yds, 2 TD, 2 INT) when MSU got the ball one final time with under two minutes to play. The usually run-happy Wildcats were held to 57 yards on the ground, but Trevor Siemian and Kain Coulter combined to throw for 246 yards, and Northwestern finally closed one out. Box Score and Stats

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The No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes (3-0) beat the Washington Huskies (2-2) 77-66 in Uncasville, Connecticut Sunday night, claiming the Hall of Fame Tip Off tournament championship in the process.

Deshaun Thomas fueled the Buckeyes, hitting 12 of his 20 shots to tie a career high with 31 points. Thomas also grabbed eight rebounds and dished out three assists in the 11 point victory.

Washington coach Lorenzo Romar talked about Thomas’ outburst, "We haven't played against anyone like him this year. He came out, he was on fire. He couldn't miss anything."

The junior forward connected on his first seven shots from the field, scoring 15 of Ohio State’s first 19 points against Washington. Thomas cooled off a bit, but still managed to finish the first half with 21 points.

"When I knocked those first couple down it was on tonight," Thomas said. "I felt pretty good and confident. My teammates found me in the right positions."

Ohio State and Washington played each other relatively even through eight minutes of play, scorching the net as the Huskies led 18-17. That’s when the rest of the team got involved, and the Buckeyes closed the half on a 24-13 run. Ohio State didn’t commit a single turnover the first 17 minutes of the game, which helped the Buckeyes take a 41-31 lead into the locker room at halftime.

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On a tough day for the nation’s unbeaten teams, the Buckeyes went to Madison and figured out a way to keep that zero in the loss column. Ohio State survived their most frustrating offensive game of the year with winning performances on defense and special teams to edge Wisconsin in overtime 21-14, and move to 11-0 on the season.

The Badgers tied the game at 14-14 with eight seconds left in regulation, but Carlos Hyde ran two yards for a touchdown in overtime and OSU safety Christian Bryant knocked down a 4th down pass by Badger QB Curt Phillips to seal the win and clinch the outright Leaders Division title for Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes.

Michigan Week now begins for the Bucks, who will host the Wolverines at noon Saturday with an opportunity to complete a perfect season against their arch-rival. Wisconsin (7-4, 4-3) had already clinched the Leaders berth in the Big Ten title game, but now they’ll have to go to Indy as the place-filler for the guys wearing the division championship rings. Badgers coach Bret Bielema fell to 1-5 in his career against OSU, and his streak of 10 straight home wins in November was snapped by a Buckeye squad that once again refused to lose.

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