Heading into Saturday’s game against Iowa riding a five-game losing streak, things were going about as poorly as they could possibly be going for Chris Holtmann’s team. To make things worse, senior guard Sean McNeil (9.9 PPG entering today’s game), was pulled from the starting lineup due to a “dental emergency” — he had emergency dental work done this week and did not practice for the last two days.
But hey, after losing five in a row, people pretty much expect you to lose — so the pressure is off, right?
Maybe no longer having the pressure of winning a Big Ten championship was the ticket, or maybe the Buckeyes are simply progressing closer to where we expected them to be a few weeks ago.