The Ohio State Buckeyes had a plan and an approach that they felt could beat the Kentucky Wildcats in the CBS Sports Classic. They set about that plan, and it worked better than anyone anticipated. Kentucky couldn't shoot and Ohio State couldn't miss. The Buckeyes disrupted the flow of anything the Wildcats tried to do on offense, and it was ugly basketball for Kentucky.
There will be a lot of stats and figures to dig into after this one, but maybe the most startling is that the Wildcats shot 29.8% from the field and 18.2% from three. At the same time, the Buckeyes shot 56.6% from the field and 26.7% from three. It'll be tough to win any games when you throw up that line while your opponent throws up the latter.
Fans took to X and were absolutely frustrated with the Kentucky play and worried about the upcoming SEC schedule.
What makes matters worse is that Kentucky now won't play for 10 more days, and Big Blue Nation has to live in the crushing loss for over a week. It'll be brutal. Maybe enjoy Christmas and forget this game ever happened?
There were a few fans who found the silver lining in this one, which is hard to do, but God bless those who find optimism in such an embarrassing loss.
The latter post does bring up a good point. Ohio State is full of talented players but has yet to play strong when facing off against quality opponents. There's a chance they had to use Kentucky to turn a corner, which is brutal for the Wildcats, but if Ohio State stays as a top 50 NET team, it will go in the same category as the Clemson loss, a quad-1 loss.
We can sugar coat it all we want but it's a brutal loss.