The Hunt for the Most Interesting Team in the World is the Dagger's 2009-10 countdown preview series. Check out the overriding principles here.

Last year's record: 22-11, 10-8 Big Ten

2009-10's toughest games: North Carolina, Butler, Michigan State, Purdue

Primary attraction: With Evan Turner on the rise, Ohio State should improve upon last year's mediocre campaign.

Three items of undeniable interest:

1. Evan Turner. See here. If this keeps up, he'll be worth the price of admission every time.

2. Reminder: Thad Matta is really good at this. Thad Matta can recruit. In case you needed evidence -- and you don't, but what the hell -- take a gander at Thad Matta's just-signed 2010 class. There's the No. 3 player in the country, Jared Sullinger, as well as No. 18 and No. 37, Deshaun Thomas and Jordan Sibert, respectively. And then Matta nabbed three more players, making a total of six pairs of fresh legs to insert into the Buckeye fold next fall. The problem lately for Matta has been in congealing this talent into Big Ten and NCAA title-worthy teams. After all, last year's No. 1 overall recruit B.J. Mullens was so raw as to barely make a dent in the Buckeyes' lineup. Even with Mullens and Turner, Ohio State finished just above .500 in a relatively mediocre Big Ten. The Buckeyes should be better next year, and then in 2010, we'll get to watch Matta start all over. With the best talent in the country. Again.

3. Mark Titus has a blog. You should read it. By now, Mark "The Shark" Titus's Club Trillion blog is nothing new; he's been writing hilarious blog posts from the comfort of the end of OSU's bench for over a year now. But Titus is a wonder to behold. Very few athletes blog. The ones who use Twitter manage to fail more often than they succeed. That Titus can maintain not only an informative blog (informative is a relative term here) but that he can manage to sprinkle it with enough humor and inside-college-hoops-ish info to keep us coming back is a major accomplishment.

Before there was B.J. Mullens, there was Greg Oden:

Greg Oden's pro career is still in utero, but it's also fun to revisit just how good he was -- primarily on defense -- as a freshman at Ohio State. Wrong league, etc.:

Related: Big Ten Basketball, The Hunt