Christoph Tilly was an under-the-radar Big Ten transfer this spring, but through one week of basketball, he’s looking like one of the most skilled big men in the country. Fans of other Big Ten teams who
aren’t familiar with his game will be soon, and some are going to wonder why in the world they didn’t hear about Tilly until he was torching their alma mater, and it was too late. That’s probably how both Tilly and Ohio State head coach Jake Diebler prefer it.
Through one week of basketball, Tilly is sitting eighth in the Big Ten in scoring at 21.5 points per game. He’s shooting 72.7% overall, has gotten to the free-throw line 13 times in the first two games, and is also averaging 7.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game. He’s fifth among new Big Ten transfers in points per game, although that stat is slanted a bit because seven of the league’s top 10 scorers so far are transfers who are new to their current programs. His 7.5 rebounds per game are good for 17th in the conference, and 11th among Big Ten transfers.
Perhaps more important for Ohio State is that Tilly is (so far) building on his career numbers at Santa Clara. The 7-footer had never played more than 23 minutes per game in a season before this year. So far, Tilly is averaging 26 minutes per game, although his four fouls per game have put him in danger of fouling out in each of the first two games. He’d also never averaged five rebounds per game in his career, and now he’s averaging better than seven. He’s nearly doubled his typical assists per game, too, recording three in the season opener and four against Purdue Fort Wayne.
Small sample size, but so far, Tilly has been better than whatever your expectations of him were going into the season; I can promise you that.
Junior forward Devin Royal, who had a breakout sophomore season last year, slid over to small forward and was playing alongside Tilly and Brandon Noel to give Ohio State some more size in the starting lineup. After blowing up in the season opener for 22 points, eight rebounds, and two steals, he lasted only seven minutes against Purdue Fort Wayne before getting removed from the game with what Diebler described as a “nagging hip injury” on Monday. Gabe Cupps started the second half in place of Royal.
Diebler said the injury has been bothering Royal for some time, and that he “makes progress for a while, and then has a setback.” He was also asked point-blank how Royal felt on Monday, and Diebler just said that Royal was “okay.”
It’s unfortunate for the junior, who nearly tripled his scoring output from 4.7 points per game as a freshman to 13.7 last season.
Royal was able to check back into the Purdue Fort Wayne game and play a few second-half minutes, knocking down a pair of three-pointers and finishing with six points (2-of-3 shooting) and three rebounds in 17 minutes. That brings his season average to 14 points and 5.5 rebounds, but he’s also averaging just 20.5 minutes because of the injury.
The 6-foot-6 junior has also started the year 4-for-7 from three-point range, which is a good sign for Diebler and those hoping that the jumper will come around and allow him to play more time at small forward. Last season, Royal’s fourth three-pointer of the season didn’t come until December 17th against Valparaiso — the 11th game of the season.
Brandon Noel, who transferred from Wright State to Ohio State in April, hasn’t been a featured part of the offense, taking just seven shots last week. He hit five of those seven shots, totaling six points against IU Indy and four against Purdue Fort Wayne.
Since Noel has mostly flown under the radar through the first few games, it’s not fair (or possible, really) to evaluate how he’s transitioned to the Big Ten from the Horizon League. He was never going to be the focus of the offense, and there’s no way he’s going to average 19 points or 13 shot attempts per game like he did at Wright State.
The few times Noel has gotten the ball, he hasn’t looked rushed, nor does it look like he is pressing when he has the ball because of the lack of opportunities. The sixth-year senior has just taken advantage of the few opportunities he’s been given since putting on the scarlet and gray.
In the season opener, he led Ohio State in rebounds with 10, but he was also responsible for four of Ohio State’s 17 turnovers on the day. He’s not going to have the ball in his hands often enough for that trend to continue, but he also may not have the ball in his hands enough to get anywhere close to the statistics he put up at Wright State.
A’mare Bynum scored a combined 15 points in the first two games last week, hitting five of his six shots, including going 2-for-3 from beyond the arc and 3-for-4 from the free throw line. The jumper looks clean, especially for someone his size. Like Noel, Bynum has also committed four turnovers already — with Bynum, it is typically over-dribbling or a lack of awareness while dribbling. In high school, he probably got away with 10, 11, or 12 dribbles before making his move — in college, that ball is going to be taken the other way by the defense with the quickness.
After Ohio State’s win over Purdue Fort Wayne, Bruce Thornton said he’s been telling Bynum to take more shots. He said that the freshman “probably would’ve had 15 or 18 points” against the Mastodons if he had shot the ball more.
So far, I haven’t gotten the sense that Bynum is pushing for Noel’s starting spot, but with Royal potentially out on Tuesday, it’s very possible that Bynum gets his first collegiate start in place of him against Appalachian State.
