HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610)- The trash talk inside the Rockets locker room started long before Ohio State beat Tennessee to setup a Rose Bowl matchup with Oregon on New Year’s Day.
“The talking never stopped,” Rockets forward Jae’Sean Tate, an Ohio State alum said.
Tate’s Buckeyes lost a 32-31 thriller in Eugene on October 12, and he’s been searching for revenge ever since. The expectation was that it would come at the Big 10 Championship Game, though a loss to Michigan to end the regular season ended that possibility, but at 4:00 on Wednesday, Tate finally gets his second shot.
“They got us on some questionable pass interference (penalties) last time we saw them,” Tate said. “They got away with one, so we had this one circled, we knew it would come full circle.”
Problem for Tate inside the Rockets locker room is that he’s an army of one matched up against a battalion of soldiers numbered in the thousands, at least that’s how it feels.
Two of Tate’s teammates, Dillon Brooks and N’Faly Dante played at Oregon, while almost the entire Rockets coaching staff either played for the Ducks or have ties to the area, led by head coach Ime Udoka, who considers himself the biggest Oregon football fan of the bunch.
“I’m from Portland,” Udoka said. “I wasn't good enough to play there, but I rooted for them.”
Udoka said he thinks there will be a lot of wagering on Wednesday’s game, and there was certainly some of that for the first game, but when asked last week what would be on the line, Tate answered simply: “Bragging rights”.
“I just can't stand all these Oregon guys around here,” he said. “I can't stand them. I can't stand Auburn; I can't stand UCLA. If you're not Buckeye Nation, man, I just really can't stand you, but especially Oregon, because there's so many of them, and they really think they’re good.”
Tate plans on wearing a pair of Oregon Duck “Dunk” shoes to the Rockets game on Wednesday night against the Dallas Mavericks, “so I can say I’m stepping on them”. The Rose Bowl should be in the fourth quarter by the time the game inside Toyota Center tips off, and expect Tate to be relentless of his Buckeyes come away victorious.
“I’ll be a very happy guy. Not only will I be happy that we beat them, but we get to go to the next round and just happy for Ryan day, he gets a lot of slack, but I think he's doing a great over there.”