ATLANTA – The prospect is fascinating.
Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. returning next season to finish the job they let slip away in Monday night’s title game loss to Florida.
“It would be great to come back and play with the same group of guys,” Conley said. “Hopefully everything works out.”
Yet even Conley likely knows it won’t.
“It will be very hard when Greg’s not here next year,” Conley told the Indianapolis Star. He quickly corrected himself in saying, “If he’s not here next year.”
But the information had slipped. Read into it what you will.
Oden responded to a barrage of questions about his future with the same answer: “Next question, please.”
As for Conley, he sounded like a man intent on returning, saying the loss will influence his decision. But give him a few days and NBA riches might sound tempting. Who knows?
Underclassmen have until April 29 to declare for the draft.
If Conley and Oden both bolt, all is not lost. Another loaded recruiting class led by Kosta Koufos, one of the nation’s top-30 prospects, should make the Buckeyes pre-season favorites to win the Big Ten. But goodbye championship hopes.
Which is why Matta surely must be holding out the hope of one last year with Oden and Conley. Asked last weekend if the college game will ever again see a scenario such as Florida returning three first-round locks to school, Matta said with a smile, “I hope next year.”
Media madness A look at the national media perspective on Monday’s championship game:
“A word about the Buckeyes: They were good enough to have taken the title other years, and they acquitted themselves nobly Monday. They were simply in against the strongest championship assemblage – better than North Carolina of 1982, better than Georgetown of 1984, better than Duke of 1992, better than Kentucky of 1996 – since Indiana finished unbeaten in 1976 … If these Ohio State Buckeyes played together two more seasons, they might become what Florida is. But they won’t because they can’t: The marketplace won’t allow it. What passes for excellence in neo-collegiate basketball is to do it once, Carmelo Anthony-style.” – Mark Bradley, Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“It was a powerful, passionate and visibly desperate performance – easily Oden’s finest, hungriest moment in probably his final college game.That’s worth remembering. That’s a worthy way to end Oden’s one-year Ohio State career, because, for his entire freshman season, we had been waiting for this: Oden facing a mountain nobody else could possibly conquer alone and Oden trying to conquer it. Alone … The Gators forced Oden to fulfill every bit of his Goliath destiny, and the Gators still were better. Florida made the history on Monday. But Oden made the impact” – Tim Kawakami, San Jose Mercury News.
“We went from March Madness to April Anticlimax … Oh yes, the Florida Gators proved their excellence, but the NCAA championship game was no more than a coronation. In fact, the tournament’s Final Four weekend was a crashing bore for anyone outside Gator Nation” – Jerry Greene, Orlando Sentinel.
Athlete-studentsLook beyond the sappy “One Shining Moment” video and the “purity” of college that Hall of Fame reject Dick Vitale ceaselessly orders us to celebrate. Look beyond it all and an interesting little place is revealed here at the Final Four.
It’s a happy place where fans are thanked for “supporting our student-athletes” after buying that $30 souvenir shirt.
A place where NCAA trademark Nazis will scold even a head coach if they don’t bide by the company line.
And a place where Greg Oden needs two body guards – OK, student managers – to protect him from the hundreds of reporters who crammed into OSU’s tiny locker room.
“This is crazy,” Daequan Cook said Sunday.
The Final Four has evolved into the nation’s second biggest sporting event behind the Super Bowl. This year, some 100,000 visitors poured into Atlanta, pumping an estimated $61 million into the city’s economy.
It’s the ultimate study of contradictions. The NCAA sold the rights to broadcast the tournament for $6 billion, yet shamelessly refers to the players only as student-athletes. It’s a business at this level. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
Before the regional finals a couple weeks ago, NCAA officials even went as far as making North Carolina coach Roy Williams get rid of the drink he brought into his press conference. The reason? The container had the wrong logo.
“We have kids getting killed in a foreign country, and (they’re) worried about me pouring a drink in an NCAA-sponsored cup,” Williams said.
We don’t exactly know how the war plays into this. But let’s just end the charade here. When the NCAA introduces players to the media, let’s call them what they are: rent-a-superstars.
Quotable“I think my mom wouldn’t like me acting like that. She’s taught me better than to be showy and flashy. And the people that I’ve known, my coaches, they’ve told me you don’t need to go out there and talk and do all that. All you have to do is go out there and play” – Oden on the flamboyant Joakim Noah.
David Briggs can be reached at [email protected].
