St. Patrick's Day Skull Session

***TRIGGER WARNING: HOT TAKES AHOY***

Ah, St. Patrick's Day... the worst holiday this side of New Year's Eve.

"Where's your green?" How about pumping through these Irish veins, idiot?

Maybe it's because I'm from Marion — where every day is a cause to wake up and grab the nearest vial of poison — but I fail to see the entertainment in going out and drinking dyed beer with a bunch of amateurs dressed as leprechauns and other Irish minstrelsy.

That's my idea of jail.

URBAN IS DEAD WRONG ON SKYLINE.  Andy Staples of SportsIllustrated.com wrote a gnarly profile of Urban Meyer and the comparisons between his time on top at Florida and now. (Nobody needs refresher course on Urban's Florida fall, but the anecdotal comparisons Staples found are mind-blowing.)

It makes for easy reading, but buried in it is an horrendous #take by the most popular man in Ohio (emphasis mine):

He’ll have to pound home the message that staying on top is tougher than getting there. If Ohio State loses this season, Meyer will have to make sure the Buckeyes know the world won’t stop spinning. And he’ll have to believe it, too. In 2009 Florida went 13-1. Its only loss came to the team that went 14-0 and won the title. Was that a failure? Not by any reasonable definition of the word. But it felt that way to Meyer at the time, and for a while the fear of that feeling ruined his life.

The world will expect the same thing of the 2015 Buckeyes that it expected of the ’09 Gators. Can Meyer and the Buckeyes handle that? He hopes so. “We’ll see what happens,” he said. “It’s March. It was pretty good that March, too.” The end result, which is impossible to predict at this juncture, is beside the point. What can be measured is how much Meyer has changed in the intervening years. His attitude, which will rub off the Buckeyes, will provide that answer.  

So far Meyer seems to be having fun even as expectations pile atop his team. On Wednesday he bounded back to his office, where he implored his administrative assistants to head upstairs to the training table. Bags of Skyline Chili Coney dogs sat there, available to players who needed a quick gut bomb to break up the much healthier post-workout fare they consumed at the training table. “Have you had Skyline?” the grinning University of Cincinnati grad—who ate a Coney or two in his youth—asked the women. “Don’t ask questions. Just go.”

That should be Skyline Chili's tagline: Don't Ask Questions.

Because if you did ask questions — like, "Why do I hate myself?" — there's no way you'd end up at a place charging a 300% markup for a dish of wet, microwaved dog food heaped with processed cheese. (In some states, you can be arrested for feeding Skyline to a minor.)

I love Urban. There are enough of my words on this site to prove this. But someone who loves you never hesitates to correct your bad take.

***bangs gavel*** It is judgment of this court that Skyline Chili is, in fact, bad.

VCU LOOK. I think about this quote from my 6th grade math teacher, Mr. Tzu, every day:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. – Mr. Tzu, math teacher

(That man taught me all I know about math — I'll melt your face with my long division skills — but he also taught me about life... and war.)

So, if we apply Mr. Tzu's teachings today, I think we should scout Ohio State's first round opponent, VCU.

From Blake Williams of BuckeyeSports.com:

Rams aggressive defensive strategy mirrors their offensive approach. VCU lives and dies outside the three-point line. The Rams make 8.1 shots from behind the arc and have attempted the 16th most threes of any team nationally. In fact, 39.9 percent of VCU’s field goal attempts have come from long range and they connect on 34.2 percent of those tries.

The three-point barrage comes in part because the Rams lack any true post threats. VCU does not start a player above 6-6 and bring 6-7 and 6-8 players off the bench. The Rams have been outrebounded by an average of 1.3 boards per game. All of that bodes well for the Buckeyes as Ohio State has struggled in the post this season and it may allow Matta to play the smaller lineup, one that forgoes a tradition center and has been effective at times this season.

VCU started the year 17-3, but closed the regular-season 5-5. That swoon coincided with the knee injury to guard Briante Weber who had been averaging 8.1 points per game, 4.3 assists and 3.7 rebounds.

Am I wrong in thinking this game could be one of the opening round's best? There's not a result that would surprise me (other than, you know something like Cardale Jones checking-in at halftime and finishing with a 20-15-10 line).

MEN'S BASKETBUCKS RAIN-MAKE TOO. Government filings, eh? If it works for the ESPN Man it works for me:

Most profitable men's basketball programs last year of this year's tourney teams, according to government filings pic.twitter.com/i6EmQ2AbaA

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) March 16, 2015

The obvious joke here is "Kentucky didn't make the list because it spent too much on its players," but I'm not sure that's a joke. Would anybody here care if Ohio State wasn't on this "government filings" list but was an undefeated overall No. 1 seed because it paid its players under the table? Because I wouldn't.

COLUMBUS RAKES MILLIONS OFF MARCH MADNESS. Columbus is hosting a number of NCAA Tournament games — Todd Jones of Dispatch.com has your full rundown over here —  and that's massive news for the city:

From Kevin Landers of 10TV.com:

Bradley Cleveland, Director of Operations for Nationwide Arena, say the court arrived last weekend and crews have been working around the clock to prepare for the week’s events.   15 pallets of hardwood owned by the NCAA will become the playing surface for a tournament that make put Columbus on the basketball map. Underneath is the ice for the Columbus Blue Jackets, which is protected by an insulating plastic.

[...]

“We're definitely looking for a spike in business with all the foot traffic and  hotels around the area and the restaurateurs that I've talked with, we're definitely in for a busy 4 to 5 days," says Jared Bitner, General Manager of Nada.

Columbus is expected to rake in some $10 million in visitor spending, according to the Greater Columbus Sports Commission.

Do this mean I don't have to pay Columbus taxes now? Because that'd be clutch.

PANTHERS NAB ANOTHER BUCKEYE. Props to Kurt Coleman, who signed a two-year deal with the North Carolina Panthers yesterday. (He joins fellow Buckeyes Andrew Norwell, Philly Brown, and Ted Ginn Jr.) I didn't think Coleman would be able to hang this long in the NFL, and he shoved that idea down my throat.

From Max Henson of Panthers.com:

"When you watch this defense on film, it's tenacious. That's my style of play. That fits me perfectly," Coleman said. "And one of the things I was really considering was which teams are really striving to be champions? I think Carolina is building and building. I can be another piece and I can help these guys get to that next level."

Coleman believes he has the ability to earn a starting role in the Panthers' defense.

"Whatever role they want me to play I am willing to do," Coleman said. "But I think I have worked my way to be a starter. I know I can play as a starter and be very productive."

I guess I'm a lightweight Panthers fan now?

OSU (FOOTBALL) WOULD RUN MARCH MADNESS. I'm a playoff radical. Give me a 16-team playoff, or give me another tournament in which Ohio State runs roughshod over its competition. (Abolishing regular season games against the likes of Western Michigan for playoff games is a trade I'd make within a second.)

Jason Kirk of SBNation.com, however, asked an important question: What would happen if the March Madness bracket was played out by football teams?

Well, Ohio State would win that too.

Here's his West bracket:

(Hmmmm. HOW DID HE KNOW OHIO STATE WOULD BEAT—Oh, that's right.)


 

Sign me up for anything that results in Ohio State trampling over Notre Dame, a team that hasn't defeated Ohio State since 1936.

COYOTES IN COLUMBUS. Why do I stay surrounded by a herd of cats, you ask? They're the best, obviously, but also because there are coyotes afoot in Columbus these days.

From Eric Schriever of TheLantern.com:

“There are coyotes that go through the OSU campus,” said Stan Gehrt, associate professor and wildlife extension specialist at Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “They’re already in Columbus. The rivers by (State Route) 315 are natural corridors for coyotes to move through, so people see them there all the time.”

You might laugh at my protection detail. That's fine:

(Yes, I know the difference between a coyote and a hyena, but I feel my point stands.)

THOSE WMDs. 2015 NCAA Tournament Emojis... Crackdown in a Detroit Stripped of Metal Parts... The Algorithm That Tells the Boss Who Might Quit... Why Do Severed Goat Heads Keep Turning Up in Brooklyn?... Chris Borland retires.. Fahrenheit Is a Better Temperature Scale Than Celsius... How did Robert Durst chop up a body and not get convicted for murder?