Sports
Ohio Men’s Basketball May Play Ohio State
< < Back to ohio-mens-basketball-may-play-ohio-stateThe Ohio men’s basketball team might renew an in-state rivalry that hasn’t been played in 19 seasons. Ohio head coach Jim Christian announced that the Bobcats and Ohio State Buckeyes are in the process of scheduling a game for the 2013-14 season according to Ted Thompson of BobcatAttack.com.
Christian made the announcement Tuesday, May 7 during a Bobcat Caravan stop in Dayton, Ohio according to Thompson. In a private message on BobcatAttack.com, Thompson wrote Christian said he thinks it might be scheduled for the second game of the season and will be at Ohio State.
Christian also spoke about the game to Craig Ihms, Communications Director of Enspace, Inc., at the Cleveland caravan stop Thursday, May 9. In another private message on BobcatAttack.com, Ihms, a 1996 journalism graduate from Ohio University, wrote, “I asked [Christian] about [the proposed Ohio State game] one-on-one afterwards, and he confirmed that it's happening this year. He said he tried to get [Ohio State head coach Thad] Matta to do a neutral site game in Cleveland but he wouldn't agree to it. [Christian] said Ohio asks to play Ohio State every year and they finally said yes. When I pointed out the timing (waiting until our powerful class graduated), he said, ‘They're not stupid.’”
Ohio hasn’t faced Ohio State in a men’s basketball game since the 1994-95 season when the Gary Trent-led ‘Cats beat the Buckeyes 74-67 in the Preseason National Invitational Tournament. That year the Bobcats won the Preseason NIT and finished the season 20-10 (13-5 Mid-American Conference).
The in-state rivals have faced each other 19 times, with Ohio State holding the series lead 15-4.
The game has yet to be confirmed by either school and likely won’t be until out-of-conference schedules are finalized later this summer.
The Evansville Purple Aces, Northern Iowa Panthers and Massachusetts Minutemen are other teams rumored to be on Ohio’s schedule.