Greg Oden is great and he'll be the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft in a few months and he could lead Ohio State to the Final Four. With that caveat out of the way, there's something I've been thinking about quite a bit recently, and Big Ten Wonk mentions it today in his post about the Big Ten's biggest surprises:Greg Oden's been merely outstanding. Don't get the "merely" wrong, I want him on my team. Oden's an efficient scorer who leads the conference in defensive rebounding (now that Brian Butch is out) and, of course, shot-blocking. So, yes, he's been outstanding. It's just that I thought he was going to be beyond outstanding. I thought he'd be Durantian.
That's pretty much how I feel. I thought Oden was just going to absolutely dominate. I thought we'd see 30 and 20 on a regular basis. I thought we'd see something along the lines of Wilt, Lew Alcindor or Shaq.
Instead, we see a good, solid player who takes advantage of his physical stature and has compensated pretty well for his bum wrist. Oden is averaging 15 points and 10 boards a game. Those are good numbers, but with the hype surrounding him coming into the season, I expected a lot more.




