Ohio State joins the sad list of No. 2 seeds whose dream seasons went poof in two hours

[mahatmakanejeeves]

I don't recognize the name, but it's good writing. This was in Saturday's Washington Post.

College Basketball • Analysis

Ohio State joins the sad list of No. 2 seeds whose dream seasons went poof in two hours

By Chuck Culpepper
March 19, 2021 at 9:23 p.m. EDT

They have highbrow names such as “Duke,” “Syracuse,” “Georgetown,” “Michigan State” and “Arizona.” Their forlorn fraternity had eight members, strewn across the past 37 college basketball seasons, before this offbeat Indiana March Madness. They included teams from South Carolina, Iowa State and Missouri, teams that spent golden seasons building hopes and then a two-hour period in March having the hopes go kaput.

They’re the No. 2 seeds who have gone toppled by No. 15 seeds in the 36 NCAA men’s tournaments since the field widened to 64 in 1985, and their ranks reached nine Friday in West Lafayette, Ind. Ohio State joined them, and that’s how it goes, and that’s a reality beloved by just about everyone except the superb team just ousted.

[College basketball’s blue bloods run cold during this NCAA tournament]

Almost by definition, they lose to the Lilliputian. So here goes the list as of now: Richmond over Syracuse in 1991, Santa Clara (with Steve Nash!) over Arizona in 1993, Coppin State (with Coach Fang Mitchell!) over South Carolina in 1997, Hampton over Iowa State in 2001, Lehigh over Duke in 2012, Norfolk State over Missouri in 2012, Florida Gulf Coast over Georgetown in 2013 and Middle Tennessee over Michigan State in 2016.

To those, add Oral Roberts, whose two leading scorers looked like everybody’s leading scorers with 59 combined points Friday in the 75-72 overtime upset of Ohio State. The outcome set off some giddiness and a locker room the Golden Eagles’ Kevin Obanor described as “a lot of water being thrown.”

{snip}

One whoosh of a game with an overtime attached, and now you have the Buckeyes gone abruptly, and you have Obanor saying, “It just feels good to leave something better than you found it, and, “We just have a lot of dogs on the team; we’re a very gritty team.” ... They do have dogs, the dogs of March: underdogs.

[3catwoman3]

1. The article in the second link...

...was interesting, too.

[JT45242]

2. FT shooting almost always the culprit

Usually the high seed that lost missed a boatload of free throws as Ohio State did. Easiest shot in basketball and causes more losses than almost anything else.

The other issue is often a stud player in foul trouble.

[SCantiGOP]

3. I went to South Carolina

One of the upsets, in 1997 to small inner-city Baltimore team Coppin State.
I was on a conference call several years ago, and as we concluded a young black man told me that he had gone to Coppin State. I asked him how he knew about that upset, since he was about 5 years old at the time, and he said it is still talked about.