The pressure inside the Schottenstein Center as the Buckeye men took on the Volunteers from Tennessee last Saturday could only be rivaled by the force of urine pressing against an alcoholic’s bladder.

It began to build right off the bat. As the arena percolated to capacity just after the first TV timeout, and with the Buckeyes leading the atomic orange-clad Vols by a score of 10 to 6, something amazing occurred that I’ve never witnessed at such a mundane, unspectacular moment in an Ohio State basketball game: every single one of the 18,000-plus, No. 10 football jersey-wearing, Civil War-veteran fans in attendance rose off their wrinkled, cellulite-covered asses and into a standing-frickin’-ovation.

I’ve been following OSU basketball since our current president was snorting coke and pounding Milwaukee’s Best like an East Side hooker, and I’ve never witnessed anything quite like this.

But as the cheers rained down on our teenaged ballers – most of whom are just now developing armpit hair – I began to decipher the praise for what it really was: complete and total desperation. The basketball Buckeyes were the slightly overweight, probably divorced 40-year-old woman at the end the bar around 2:30 a.m. who can tie a lit cigarette into a knot with just her tongue (picture Greg Oden, a wig and a pack of Virginia Slims). They are the last chance for Buckeye fans to get laid in 2007, and godammit, we’re not about to stay horny for another six months. The Buckeye faithful in the arena that afternoon were goin’ home with the men’s basketball team.

Of course, as a completely biased, homer “journalist,” I really can’t say that I blame them. As I recall, Buckeye fans everywhere were left with more blue balls than a Smurf convention after … that thing that happened two weeks ago that will never be mentioned again in this newspaper. We rounded third base, for Christ’s sake. They were waving us home. Now we’re looking for our rebound.

The weight of a National Championship has been transferred from a senior quarterback to a freshman center. This is the worst thing to happen to OSU basketball since Matt Sylvester was offered a scholarship.

So, as the story usually goes, we wake up the next morning around noon, wipe the crust out of our eyes, put on our scarlet-colored glasses and take a quick look to our immediate left. What we see might make us wish we took our time searching for that rebound relationship. Sure, the Buckeyes might know some nifty tricks, but is this really a team that can make our dreams come true? Are we just setting ourselves up for yet another heartbreak? Did I really just have sex with a seven-foot woman who is in desperate need of a MACH3 Turbo?

No, yes, and dear God I hope not.

But it’s too late now. I could feel it in that arena. We were pouring our hearts into this team of 18-year-old freshmen who were spending most of their time a year ago scribbling book reports on Treasure Island and eating fish sticks in a high school cafeteria. They’re too green, folks. Too unprepared for the gauntlet of media, NCAA Tournament games, and the unyielding pressure that comes with following a disaster and making life worth living again for an entire throng of crazy assh***s in scarlet sweatshirts. They’re just not ready to make up for the failure of their colleagues who play in the stadium across the street.

I hope I’m wrong, of course. I hope I can write a column three months from now detailing how my doctor told me that I’m verging on mental retardation. I hope they find a way to hang some kind of banner in the rafters above the Schottenstein Center that they won’t have to take back down years later. I hope Florida center Joakim Noah is diagnosed with some sort of temporarily-debilitating disease.

But I’m just playing it safe, folks. I’ve learned my lesson before and I don’t want to go through it again. For once in my life, I’m going to be a realist.

On second thought, f**k it. Oden doesn’t look so bad after a fifth of Jack and a glance at my Jan. 9 Dispatch.

Scott Woods can be reached at [email protected].