BOSTON — Evan Turner and Jared Sullinger will don Celtics green Monday night, but they’ll have scarlet and gray on the brain.
Both Turner and Sullinger are products of Ohio State University, whose football team will battle Oregon for the College Football Playoff national championship as the Celtics host the New Orleans Pelicans.
“I wasn’t really a big football fan until I went to Ohio State,” Turner, who played three seasons in Columbus before turning pro in 2010, said before Monday’s game. “It’s a football state, obviously. And I’m happy. I’m happy for the guys, I’m happy for the university. Coach (Urban) Meyer is doing a great job, and the guys are playing really hard. Once again, I think it’s a great story of how they overcame (quarterback) Braxton Miller getting hurt, and J.T. Barrett, and now Cardale Jones is doing his thing. There’s a lot of great things going on there.”
Turner and Sullinger have been handing out a bit of trash talk during their Buckeyes’ run to the title game — especially after Ohio State knocked off teammate Gerald Wallace’s alma mater, Alabama, in last weekend’s semifinals.
“Yeah, I mean, we took out Bama,” Turner said. “G was upset about that. I haven’t heard him speak since then. And then everyone else … you don’t want to really be a bully. We’ve got guys here in who went to Missouri (Phil Pressey). We’ve got guys who went to Texas (Avery Bradley). Kentucky (James Young, who was sitting at the locker next to Turner’s at the time).
“You don’t want to be too boastful because guys are missing stuff,” he added with a smirk.
Not too boastful, huh? Well…
“We’re an SEC team — we’ve got the talent now,” Turner went on to brag. “We’ve got the speed. We’re not getting guys from Michigan, Ohio anymore. We’re getting guys from Texas, everywhere. It’s a different ballgame, and people need to understand that.”
Sullinger wasn’t on hand to give a similarly ringing before the game, but he did offer his support for the Buckeyes on Twitter.
[tweet https://twitter.com/Jared_Sully0/status/554757968164814849 align=’center’]
Thumbnail photo via Greg Bartram/USA TODAY Sports Images
