Week of 12/23-12/29 Review
It wasn’t a very busy week for the Buckeyes with Christmas they only had one game and it was just a final cupcake primer in leading up to the start of the Big Ten season.
The only game of the week was at home against a 3-12 Chicago St. Cougars program that gave up little resistance. The game started off pretty slow for OSU with the team shooting woefully starting just 1-8 from behind the arc. They were not playing very good defense either and found themselves in a game that was too close early on. When they started attacking the rim and playing more of a inside out game the shots started to fall and the defense started to pick up and the Buckeyes never looked back in blowing out the Cougars 87-44. The Buckeyes ended up shooting 57% and 47% from 3 point range. they also out rebounded the Cougs 44-18 which helped a ton. Deshawn Thomas led the Buckeyes in scoring with 17 points and was one of 5 players with double digits. Evan Ravenel led the team in rebounds with 10. While it was a great game to work on some issues in the end it won’t do much for their Natl. reputation. This leads us to the start of the B1G season after going 10-2 in Non-Conf games.
Week of 12/30-1/5 Preview
Wednesday January 2nd
The Buckeyes open up B1G play by hosting 9-4 Nebraska Cornhuskers. Nebraska as a team has not been very impressive so far with no signature wins and some really horrible losses. They are scoring 61 points a game while only shooting the ball 43%. They avg 32 rebounds a game and 11 assists. They have 3 guys averaging 13 points a game but after those 3 guys not much to talk about.
Saturday January 5th
The Buckeyes on Saturday will face a tough road test as they head to Champaign, Ill. to take on the 13-1 Illinois Illini. The Illini are a surprising team who came into the season unranked and have played extremely well under first year head coach John Groce and have worked their way up to being ranked 12th in the country. The Illini are led by All B1G player Brandon Paul who I am sure OSU fans remember for scoring 42 points against OSU last year. Paul is scoring 18 points a game this year on 43% FG%. He also leads the team in rebounds per game at 5.1 RPG. The team has 6 guys scoring 8 points a game or more so they have depth and will use it. They like to run a lot and try and control the pace of the game. As a team they avg 77 points per game while shooting 45%. They avg 36 rebounds and 12 assists per game as well. Should be a great match up and a chance for OSU to state their case as an elite team in the B1G.
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