More hoops...

Buckeyes start the stretch run tonight at Bloomington. Following Illinois' upset of Wisconsin in Madison last night and Purdue's win at Michigan State, there are now FIVE teams within a game of first place in the conference.

Before I forget, I heard the craziest statistic last night. Since Head Coach Bo Ryan took over at Wisconsin at the beginning of the 2000-2001 season, the Badgers have only lost SIX times in Madison. He's losing fewer than one game at home per season. Also, Illinois has three of those six victories.

Buckeyes have seven regular season games remaining. Four of those are against teams at the top of the conference. It's put-up or shut-up time for this bunch.

Even given the heated conference race, all is not well in Buckeye Country. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

With a shot at the Big Ten title and a leading national player of the year candidate in Evan Turner, Ohio State is headed toward its lowest average attendance in the 12-year history of Value City Arena.

The Buckeyes are averaging 13,411 fans per game, which ranks sixth in the Big Ten and is more than 4,100 fewer fans than Ohio State averaged during its run to the Final Four three seasons ago, 2,500 fewer fans than last season. Athletic director Gene Smith said he's dumbfounded. Coach Thad Matta called it odd.

Not once in 15 games has Ohio State sold out its capacity of 19,409, with only three home games remaining. Three years ago 12 games were sellouts; last season there were four. Never before have the Buckeyes gone through a season without one, but they missed their best chance with the Jan. 31 50-year reunion of the 1960 title team on a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

Given the amount of snow that is now on the ground in Columbus and will be for some time, a sellout seems unlikely over the last few weeks of the season. Although hopefully a conference race that will probably go down to the wire will bring a few more fans to the Schottenstein Center.

And speaking of the Schottenstein Center, therein lies a big part of the problem. It's a monument to all that's wrong with the athletic department. The main reason every home basketball game feels like an insurance seminar is because the students are mainly relegated to the rafters. Yes, one end of the court features a student section but those guys aren't even close to as on-top-of the action as most student sections around the country.

Case in point, did you see the Breslin Center in East Lansing last night? ROCKING. There are students filling almost the entire lower bowl. Another reason the Breslin Center is superior to Ohio State's home court? IT'S NOT CALLED VALUE CITY ARENA FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Here's the other major Schottenstein Center problem, the architecture. At most collegiate basketball arenas the stands rise fairly rapidly creating an actual bowl that traps sound. St. John Arena basically goes straight up for example. The stands at Ohio State's current home court drift lazily upwards towards the luxury boxes. The student section in particular is just too flat. I don't know if there is anyway whatsoever for that to be fixed. I doubt it.

Another reason fans may be having hard time getting pumped up about Buckeye hoops? The tournament. As much as people bitch about the BCS, the NCAA tournament (which is awesome) has rendered the regular season largely meaningless. Sure, you're playing for entry into the tournament and for seed. With automatic bids being awarded to conference tourney winners though, a team can almost take the entire season off, get hot at the beginning of March and still have a chance to win the national title.

And now they're talking about expanding the tournament further? Why have a regular season at all? Why not just start a massive tournament at the beginning of the season and include everyone? Expanding the tournament further is a ridiculous idea, which is why I'm sure it will eventually happen.