It occurred to me how my frustrations with today's loss to Oral Roberts are so similar to my frustrations after the NC loss to Alabama. Obviously it's very different to lose in the NC to a great team and to lose in the first round in basketball to a 15 seed, but I see some similarities.
My frustration after the Alabama loss was not the loss per se, but rather that Kerry Coombs didn't seem to bother scheming or planning to make it even remotely difficult on Alabama's offense. Alabama had many great players and it would be impossible to defend them all, but maybe you should start by trying to slow down the first receiver to win the Heisman in 20 years. But Devonta Smith had probably his best game of the year with 215 yards in one half epitomized by the infamous Tuf Borland play (which I blame totally on scheme).
Similarly, with today's loss to Oral Roberts, the only thing I read about in anyone's game preview was how they had the nation's leading scorer in Abmas who could shoot from anywhere and then a nice complementary piece in Obanor. You weren't going to be able to stop them from scoring completely, but you could make things hard and make them inefficient. But Abmas and Obanor combined for 59 of 75 points on 19-45 overall and 10-22 from 3.
In both these cases, Ohio State let themselves be beat by the most obvious player(s) you had to pay attention to and that anyone could have determined that goals number 1, 2, 3 should be to at least slow them down. Again, football losing in the NC is much different than basketball losing to a 15 seed, but both losses to me are defined by a lack of any coherent defensive game plan - plans which seemingly ignored the most obvious things possible.
That is why I think next year is a prove-it year for both Coombs and Holtmann and if things don't improve dramatically, their tenures should be seriously evaluated if they are the right fit. It's one thing to lose. It's another to lose in the most obvious way possible where it seems like you didn't really do anything to stop the other team.
