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I went to the Ohio State men’s basketball game last night because apparently I am a glutton for punishment.
No, no, I’m just kidding.
Sort of.
I have to admit I have not covered a lot of Ohio State men’s basketball games as a professional reporter over the years, and there are a few reasons for that1.
(Hit the footnote attached to “that” above if you’re interested in why; otherwise skip ahead to my takeaways from the game after the ad break. And please consider clicking the ad because if you do I will get compensation but it won’t cost you anything.)
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I guess the glutton for punishment part comes in assigning myself to cover a game when I am in my first week without the daily grind of football to keep up with.
But with No. 13 Illinois coming to town, I figured a good chance to get caught up on this OSU team was at hand.
I’m pretty sure I got the full experience, too.
What I saw was a team with some talent and potential look clearly outclassed by a good Big Ten opponent.
The arena atmosphere is still mostly nonexistent, the rebounding left something to be desired and so did the shot selection at times.
Here is Jeff Gilbert’s recap at Press Pros Magazine:
Here are some more takeaways from me:
In year two under Jake Diebler, the Buckeyes are in an uncomfortable position
They are retooling on the fly for a fan base that (as much as it exists) is not interested in growing pains.
Since the last Elite Eight in 2013, they haven’t had any of those awful years that came between the Jimmy Jackson and Michael Redd teams in the 1990s, but they aren’t much more relevant than they were when they were winning 6-10 games.
They had a real opportunity to impress Tuesday night but came up short.
I wouldn’t say they squandered it because I’m not sure it was really theirs to lose.
Bruce Thornton continued his torrid start to the season
Ohio State’s senior point guard made his first nine shots — including six 3-pointers — and surpassed his scoring average (20.1 ppg.) in the first half. Then Illinois was able to switch Andrej Stojakovic (Yes, Peja’s kid) onto him in the second half and he added only 10 points. That’s not a knock on Thornton. He just needs more help.
Thornton tried to spread the love in the second half, but his teammates let him down. He said he’s going to keep passing them the ball anyway. That’s a credit to him, but John Mobley Jr., Devin Royal and Christoph Tilly combined to go 2 for 16 from 3-point range.
That Illinois coach Brad Underwood had options when it comes to defenders was also instructive
Ohio State has some good players, but they are pretty thin. Illinois has five players averaging double figures, and overall they are very long, athletic and skilled. Not a bunch of five-star freak athletes but just good basketball players. As has generally been the case for the past 12 years, Ohio State doesn’t have an overabundance of either, let alone both.
Underwood basically said Ohio State had some different defensive coverages they had to solve
Once they did, the Buckeyes had to resort to playing man to man, and plays to the strengths of the Illini, who can all shoot and handle the ball in Underwood’s spread offense.
The Illinois coach also mentioned Royal “was a pain in the butt as 4 (power forward)” last season but he presents a different look having moved to the 3 (small forward/wing) this season. Not sure that experiment is going so well.
Diebler felt his team strung together bad possessions the few times they either tied it or took the lead
Forty-eight fouls were called so they needed to keep attacking the rim because those moves were being rewarded with whistles, but Ohio State settled for jump shots too often in those stretches.
Obviously the margin for error is small for this Ohio State team, and they committed a lot of errors.
Mobley missed four free throws in the second half while they were trying to claw back into the game, and Tilly missed a couple as well. The Buckeyes got outscored by 14 at the charity stripe as Illinois went 29 for 32.
Conclusion
Of course the Buckeyes aren’t as good as Illinois, but I suppose it might be nice to be good enough to beat them at your place.
Winning on the road is very hard in college basketball — Underwood called it, “Like finding gold,” — which means winning at home is easier. That never really felt like it was going to happen, though.
Illinois is just bigger, more athletic and more skilled…
This basketball season has a long way to go, but it feels like Ohio State is stuck in the same cycle for a decade.
They don’t get many elite recruits, but they also don’t develop guys into any more than their recruiting ranking.
They don’t do enough of the little things a less-talented team needs to do, either, and skill-wise they are never outstanding. Certainly not enough to overcome the physical deficiencies against good teams.
I guess we’ll see what Diebler can do about that over the next 2.5 months.
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1 For a decade or so, I was the women’s basketball beat writer for Buckeye Sports Bulletin while someone else handled the men’s team. Those were some great seasons 2006-15 and obviously I was still following the team, but I didn’t really cover them — like go to the games, breakdown interviews, analyze what happened, etc. Then coincidentally after 2015 the team has barely been worth following. When I went to work for the Dayton Daily News in 2016, we covered Ohio State football daily, but basketball was a different story because there are a lot of people in the market who root for Buckeye football but care more about Dayton Flyers basketball. If Chris Holtmann had recreated the early Thad Matta years, well, I suspect we would have been more interested in following what they were doing all winter, but that… is not what happened. Anyway, I told you that story just to get you up to speed for the current day. Or yesterday in this case.