Michigan State had a convincing home win on Tuesday night and looks to make it two in a row on Sunday. The Spartans are hosting our southern neighbor, the Ohio State Buckeyes. The game is scheduled for 1 PM ET and will air on CBS.
OSU Overview
The Buckeyes come into this one as a middling Big Ten team. They are currently in a three-way tie for 7th place along with Iowa and UCLA at 9-6 in conference play. They have a 17-9 overall record and are currently projected as an 11-seed and as one of the last
four byes in ESPN’s latest Bracketology.
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Like many power conference teams not named MSU, OSU began their season collecting wins against lesser opponents. When they took on major conference teams, they had a series of 1-point games – beat Notre Dame, lost to Pittsburgh, beat West Virginia in double OT, and lost to North Carolina. This past weekend, they went up against a ranked Virginia squad and fell by just 4 points. Against ranked Big Ten teams, they have lost to Illinois and Nebraska once and um twice, but they just had a solid win over Wisconsin, beating the Badgers 86-69 on the same night we defeated UCLA.
OSU Rotation
Before I list the OSU starters, I’ll mention that John Mobley Jr., one of their starting guards and best players, suffered a hand injury 2 games ago and is out indefinitely. The Buckeyes still were able to defeat Wisconsin without him, so they still have a capable team. This was their starting 5 in the Wisconsin game:
- #2 6-2 SR G – Bruce Thornton 21.8 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 5.2 apg, 54.6% FG, 39.5% 3FG
- #3 6-4 SO G – Taison Chatman 4.3 ppg, 51.8% FG, 53.1% 3FG
- #21 6-6 JR F – Devin Royal 141 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 42% FG, 40% 3FG
- #1 6-8 FR F – Amari Bynum 9.6 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 50% FG, 30.9% 3FG
- #13 7-0 SR C – Christoph Tilly 11.4 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 45.5% FG, 23.55% 3FG
Thornton (no relation to Austin that I could find) rarely sits, as he is averaging 36 MPG. He leads OSU in scoring and assists, and he shoots it at a very high clip.
There is just one name to know off the bench
- #7 7-1 SO C – Ivan Njegovan 3 ppg, 3.4 rpg 54.5%, 50% 3FG
For his height alone, Njegovan, from Croatia, can present some problems inside. He doesn’t get a ton of minutes, but he is a skilled rebounder when he does play.
UCLA Coaching
Jake Diebler is in his 3rd season as the head coach at Ohio State, though he was an assistant under previous HC Chris Holtmann for four years. He became the interim coach in February 2024 and named the permanent replacement that offseason. This is his first gig as the top dog; he has compiled a 42-27 record thus far. He had previous assistant roles at Vanderbilt and Valparaiso, where he played his college ball.
Scouting UCLA
The Buckeyes have a respectable offense, ranking 5th in the conference at 81.2 PPG, a few notches higher than MSU. Their defense, however, is 12th allowing 73.4. At 49%, they are top-30 nationally shooting the rock, though their 34.9% rate from deep has them in the 130s. To their credit, they are 10th in the country from the stripe.
Even with a pair of 7-footers and an above-average rebounding guard in Thornton, the Buckeyes are just mediocre in rebounding. They average 34.7 boards per game, 11.7 on offense. In contrast, MSU grabs 41.1, 13 coming off our own misses.
With the absence of Mobley and his 2nd-on-team 15.1 PPG and his 40% 3FG, this Ohio State team loses one of its main dimensions. For a team that is already not overly reliant on the triple, look for Ohio State to bring the game inside. In their win against Wisconsin, OSU attempted 57 total field goals, only 21 of which were beyond the arc. Of their 36 2-point attempts, all but one was in the paint, and the vast majority of those were inside or just out of the restricted area. We should expect them to resort to this same game plan against us.
Keys to the Game for MSU
To build off what I just said in the previous section, we need our interior defense to play well. Jaxon Kohler and especially Carson Cooper need to be disrupters inside, and if Coen Carr and even Jordan Scott can fly in for some help blocks, that would also go a long way.
Offensively, I am not expecting the Spartans to shoot 52% from downtown like they did against UCLA, though I would not be opposed to that. I want to see Kohler and Cooper have a little more success in shooting the short- and mid-range jumpers. At this point, I do not have the highest faith in either of them to finish their bunnies consistently or to sense a double-team, so I know they will still be responsible for at least a few turnovers.
For MSU, this is the next-to-last home game. I want to see the seniors – Kohler and Cooper – step up and play like they know they are running out of times to play in front of the Izzone. Jeremy Fears will do Jeremy Fears things; he has proven his consistency at this point. We need the senior captains to raise their bar one more time for these final games.
What are your thoughts, TOC nation? Do you think MSU has another easy game or will this be a closer contest than UCLA? Let us know in the comments and be on the lookout for tomorrow’s game thread.
