Less than 16 hours before the Ohio State men's basketball team was to depart for Connecticut, Eric Buchanan’s phone buzzed with a text message.
Buchanan, a longtime equipment manager with 20 years of experience at the university -- the past seven with the basketball team -- had just received a text message from coach Thad Matta. Associate coach Dave Dickerson’s sister had just died, Matta said, and the Buckeyes wanted to honor her memory in some way for a game on Saturday against the Huskies. It was around 11:30 p.m. Thursday, and Ohio State was scheduled to depart at 3 p.