Happy football bye week, Jeff Boals exhibition week, and National Bologna Day, to those of you who celebrate any of those three things. The Ohio State men’s basketball team will face off with the Ohio University
Bobcats in two days in an unofficial scrimmage, which you can buy tickets for here and attend, if you wish. Eight days after that is the season opener, and then we’re off and running.
While it isn’t the topic of this week’s debate, it should be noted that Ohio State locked up its biggest recruiting commitment in over a decade this week, with five-star forward Anthony Thompson announcing that he will be staying home and playing for the Buckeyes next year. Thompson, a 6-foot-8, 205-pound small forward, is originally from Lebanon, Ohio, but is currently playing for Western Reserve Academy in Hudson. Thompson picked Ohio State over Indiana and is the highest-rated homegrown recruit to pick Ohio State since Jared Sullinger in the 2010 class.
Last week, Connor and Justin debated which team – if not Ohio State – will win the Big Ten this year. Shockingly, neither of our basketball writers picked the Buckeyes to make the leap from 10th place to first. Connor went with Michigan, which finished tied for second last season in Dusty May’s first year. Justin went with Purdue, which has finished in the top four of the conference each of the last five seasons. The
Boilermakers are also the No. 1 team in the AP Poll to start the season.
This week, Ohio State will play its first actual basketball game since it lost to Iowa in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament on March 12. Jeff Boals’ Ohio Bobcats, picked to finish fourth in the 13-team Mid-American Conference, lost to Wright State 63-57 in an exhibition game this past Monday.
Both Jake Diebler and Boals will mix different lineups into this game and prioritize practicing specific plays and sets over trying to win the game. However… winning matters, right? Or doesn’t it?
This week’s question: Does the score of Ohio State’s exhibition against Ohio really matter?
Connor: Yes
The people inside the walls of the Schottenstein Center will interpret Sunday’s exhibition results quite a bit differently than the people outside of those walls, no doubt. If Ohio State somehow loses to Ohio on Sunday, there will be a slew of bad press, funny tweets, and an unreasonable level of panic from the fans.
Am I protecting Ohio State here in case they lose? No. But the Buckeyes are going to run out some funky lineups on Sunday that you may not see again all season, especially if they don’t look good against OU. Ivan Njegovan, Christoph Tilly, and Brandon Noel may share the floor at some point. Gabe Cupps, Myles Herro, and Taison Chatman might get some run together. You won’t see that again all year, but you might get it on Sunday.
So even though the score won’t necessarily be indicative of the team playing at its very best, fans are still going to react in a strong way regardless. So, it’s in Ohio State’s best interest to score more points than OU. Also, Ohio State lost to D-II Findlay in an exhibition in 2007, and went on to miss the NCAA Tournament that year (although they did win the NIT).
Additionally, this will be the first (televised) proof that Ohio State is going to play faster. Diebler (and even before him, Chris Holtmann) has been talking about how the Buckeyes will play faster each year for the past nine years, but it never really materialized. Last season, Ohio State finished No. 197 in adjusted tempo, with 67.3
possessions per 40 minutes. That is the fastest an Ohio State team has been since the 2016-2017 team finished No. 192 in adjusted tempo.
More possessions do not always mean more points, but more often than not, it does! So if Ohio State does try to move the ball quicker and get up and down more, I expect them to score more points. For that reason, the final score does seem important because it can tell us a few things.
Justin: No
Simply put. Why should it? The Buckeyes will be trying new things, trying out different lineup combinations, and making sure they have everything set up heading into the season.
I do agree that if they lose and look bad that the twittersphere will not be a fun place for 24 hours, but as long as they start the season 7-0 or 8-0, people will forget. No. 8 BYU arguably has the best player in the country with AJ Dybantsa and one of the top teams in the country, and lost to Nebraska in an exhibition game last week. Is Nebraska better the BYU? I didn’t think so before that game, and I still don’t think so. Although I do think Nebraska might be better than we think.
I do want Ohio State to look great and win comfortably because obviously that means they at least look ready for the season to start, but it is similar to the NFL preseason to me. The Browns went 3-0. They are now 2-5. It is because different people are playing and different things are being worked on since the game doesn’t matter.
I will say that context matters. If the starting five all play 30 minutes and they look terrible and lose by ten, then I will be worried. But I don’t think that is how the coaches will approach this. So it won’t matter to me.
