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Baseball
Big Ten Tournament Gives Buckeyes Second Life for Second-Straight Season
By John Porentas

For the second-straight season the Buckeyes qualified for the Big Ten tournament on the very last day of the regular-season. Last year that worked out pretty well for them.

In 2007 OSU entered the tournament as the six-seed of the six-team tournament and emerged as the surprise winner. The Buckeyes swept through the double-elimination tournament unbeaten to win the championship. The highlight was a second-round 4-2 win over homestanding Big Ten regular-season champion Michigan. The Buckeyes then defeated Minnesota in the tournament finale to claim the championship. The tournament win earned the Buckeyes the Big Ten's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Like last year, the five-seed Buckeyes are looking at the tournament as a chance to salvage a season that didn't exactly go according to plan.

"We've got to approach it as this is our second chance," said OSU Head Coach Bob Todd. "Obviously the regular season didn't go the way we wanted it to go."

The Buckeyes were extremely young this season and as you might expect, struggled for consistency. OSU had just four seniors on the roster. Freshmen, redshirt freshmen and sophomores regularly dominated the lineup. There were growing pains, but Todd thinks his team improved as the season progressed.

"For the most part I thought I saw us defensively becoming better. We started doing a little bit better at the plate, especially with men in scoring position and started coming through with some big base hits that we didn't do early in the year."

OSU's defense has improved, they have consistently put runners on base and the starting pitching has been adequate. What the Buckeyes have failed to do is produce power in the batting order. They have also suffered with a very inconsistent bullpen. OSU isn't likely to suddenly find some power, but that may not be all that important this week. Ray Fisher Stadium at Michigan is notorious as a ballpark where the wind blows in far more often than out, and that makes it a tough place in which to hit homeruns. Because of their lack of power, the Buckeyes are a small-ball offense team, and that could be a big advantage in Ann Arbor.

"My experience is that the wind is always blowing in there," said Todd. "This year it is probably an advantage for us because we have to rely on pitching and for the ball to stay in the park for us."

"The more powerful teams have to play small ball with us," added senior left fielder Tony Kennedy.

OSU will face four-seed Illinois in the first game of the tournament at 11:00 AM Wednesday in Ann Arbor. The Buckeyes took two out of three in Columbus in the regular-season meeting with the Illini. Three-seed Penn State meets six-seed Indiana later that day. Top seeds Michigan and Purdue will have a bye on the opening day of the tournament. Todd knows that like last year, winning the tournament will be a daunting task.

"For us to win this tournament, which we've done eight times now, you've got to have all phases of your game, defense, hitting and pitching," said Todd. "We have to have all three every game or it will be very tough to be successful."

OSU has used Jake Hale as their Friday pitcher this season, but Todd said the Buckeye brain trust is still deciding on a pitching rotation.

"We're talking about it right now. We think we have some people who can maybe neutralize what Illinois does. Looking to Thursday, we don't know who we're going to play. It's either going to be Michigan or Purdue if we win. We're weighing the pros and cons on the whole thing," he said.

Should the Buckeyes win on Wednesday they will not know who their second round opponent will be until the results of the day's second game are known. Top-seed Michigan will play the lowest seed that wins on Wednesday. If three-seed Penn State defeats six-seed Indiana, the Buckeyes would play Michigan. If Indiana wins, the Wolverines will play Indiana and the winner of the OSU vs. Illinois game will play two-seed Purdue. If the Buckeyes lose to Illinois they will play the loser of the Indiana vs. Penn State game in an elimination game.

Tournament Bracket

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