Xavier's Revenge Must Wait

Xavier fans will have to wait another year to seek revenge on the coach that lied to them. For now, they can only lament about being pushed from the Sweet Sixteen by Ohio State's Greg Oden.

In what looked to be the first major upset of the 2007 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, number one seeded Ohio State University held on to beat the ninth seeded Xavier 78 - 71 in overtime.

For fans of Xavier, the game was nearly sweet revenge. Ohio State head coach Thad Matta was the former head coach at Xavier, leaving in July of 2004 for his current position. The current head coach of Xavier, Sean Miller, was Matta's top assistant at Xavier. The two have remained close friends.

Unfortunately, the same can not be said of the relationship between Matta and Xavier fans. During the 2003-2004 season Matta lead the Xavier Muskateers to the Elite Eight, the school's deepest finish in the NCAA tournament. Just months later, in July of 2004, in-state rival Ohio State began recruiting Matta to fill the coaching vacancy created by the firing of former head coach Jim O'Brien. On the evening of July 6th, 2004, Matta assured his Xavier players and fans that he would remain as head basketball coach. Less than 24 hours later he had signed a contract to be head coach of the men's basketball program of Ohio State.

Xavier fans have not forgotten. During Thursday's 1st round game against BYU, Xavier fans booed and heckled Matta while he sat in the crowd scouting for the second round match-up.

With less than 3:00 to play in Saturday's 2nd round game against Ohio State and Matta, Xavier looked poised to taste the sweetness of revenge--leading the top ranked Ohio State by 9.

A late rally by Ohio State brought the game to within 2 points with less than 10 seconds left in regulation. After Xavier's Justin Cage rebounded a miss shot by Ohio State, OSU star Greg Oden fouled out when he aggressively pushed Cage out of bounds to stop the clock. Cage went on to make 1 of 2 free throws to give Xavier a lead of 3. Ohio State senior Ron Lewis then hit a long three point shot to force the game into overtime. Even without Oden, OSU easily controlled the overtime period to move into the Sweet 16.

Replays of Oden's foul clearly show the frustrated center place both hands on the chest of Cage prior to shoving him to the ground. No intentional or flagrant foul was called, resulting in Cage only shooting throws. Had an intentional foul been called, Xavier would have also retrained possession of the ball.

The no call came at the end of a game that had otherwise been cleanly played and officiated.