Friday's Buckeye Bits

Good Friday morning, everybody! It's been a heck of a first week with Buckeye Bits, and the first week of the off-season comes to a close today as well. Football may be over, but there is still plenty of Ohio State sports to watch.

Sunday, the men's basketball team tips at 4:30 against the Hoosiers at the corner of Lane and Olentangy. Vengeance shall be the word of the day, as the Buckeyes lost in Bloomington, as well as earlier this week in Champaign. Of course, last night the Hoosiers were shocked by Minnesota, 77-74. If you aren't going to the game, watch it on CBS.

If you like your Buckeye sports a bit colder and bloodier, the Puckeyes will face off against Michigan at 7:30 Friday at the Schott, and again Sunday at 5:05. The Sunday matchup is in Cleveland, in the Frozen Diamond Faceoff in the Indians' Progressive Field. Friday's game will be shown on the Big Ten Network, and the big game Sunday will be on Fox Sports Ohio. Jeff Svoboda has an excellent writeup on Buckeye Sports Bulletin. No word if Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn will be in attendance.

Preview: #25 Ohio State vs. Indiana

Should stick to basketball

Ohio State (5-3, 2-2) is back in the ITS BlogPoll Top 25 after their big upset against Wisconsin, which puts them in the hunt for the first ever B1G Conference Championship Game (CCG). The Buckeyes have gained some serious momentum after their 2nd half collapse to Nebraska, bouncing back to upset a then-undefeated Illinois team at Memorial Stadium, and then last week handing Wisconsin their second straight loss, on a Hail Mary from Braxton Miller to Devin Smith. Indiana (1-8, 0-5), on the other hand, is at the bottom of the Big Ten this year, with no hope of coming back up.

Like Luke Fickell, Hoosier head coach Kevin Wilson is in his first year at the helm, and while they weren't expecting a National Title run, they were hoping for some improvement on last year's 5-7 record, and rejoin the bowl eligible teams. Clearly, it's gotten worse, as the Hoosiers are facing tough times, with 3 decent football games ahead of them, including this game. While an upset in the 'Shoe would be great for them, they aren't expecting any sort of miracle.

The 12 PM EST noon game should mostly be a snoozer, but a very important match up for Braxton Miller and the rest of this young offense. OSU sometimes gets lazy and plays down to opponents, but then turns it on when it gets close. That was under Tressel, granted, but Fickell has many of the same ideas and concepts, as he's already proven this season.