The home team owned a 7-1 record, while the visitor from Washington County was 6-1 on the evening of Dec. 14, 2011 at the Convo.
It had all the earmarks of a classic college men's basketball showdown - but not really.
Ohio University, an NCAA Division I school and a member of the Mid-American Conference, was supposed to beat Marietta College, a DIII and Ohio Athletic Conference participant, and did relatively easily, 88-54.
Like someone once said, "The game was close until it started."
Since that pre-Christmas contest, the Jon VanderWal-coached Pioneers went on to post another winning campaign, which was capped by an upset setback to Ohio Northern University in the OAC Tournament playoffs.
Ohio University, on the otherhand, is still playing basketball, and scheduled to play mighty North Carolina in an NCAA DI Sweet 16 Midwest Regional semifinal in St. Louis Friday night.
The No. 13-seeded Bobcats (29-7) are of course the underdog, but already they've beaten Michigan and South Florida, respectively, in the tournament to get where they are now.
"It's exciting to see OU having so much success in the big dance," VanderWal said. "They obviously have a tall order coming up with North Carolina."
Kind of like VanderWal and his Pioneer cagers had back in December.
The thing about the OU-MC game, Marietta was originally thinking of the possibility of an exhibition contest until Ohio said in so many words, "Hey, let's play for real."
The Bobcats had a date free on their 2011-12 regular season slate.
Needless to say, it's not often that a DI basketball university program plays a DIII school.
Got to give Ohio University a lot of credit, and no doubt the Bobcats won over a lot of fans for their gesture.
If OU had lost to Marietta, it probably would've never heard the end of it.
Anyways, here's to the Bobcats and to even more success on the NCAA tournament trail.
As for Marietta College, what if next season it was to contact The Ohio State University for a possible men's basketball exhibition game.
Do you suppose...nah.
Ron Johnston is the Marietta Times sports editor, and can be reached at 376-5441, or at rjohnston@mariettatimes.com
