We don’t have the manpower to cover every basketball game that involves the Ohio State Buckeyes but we do still want to keep tabs on our team and have a place to discuss what is happening during this year’s hopefully extremely successful season.

Week in Review

11/28/2012: Ohio State 68 – Duke 73 (4-1, 0-0 Big Ten)

The 2011 match-up of Ohio State and Duke was a defining moment for two aspects of my life: my fandom of the Ohio State Buckeyes and my sports-relationship with my father-in-law. Your situation may be different, but sports-wise, my father-in-law and I rarely agree on anything. He is a huge Boston Celtics fan (sorry Chris, but, BARF), still idolizes Joe Paterno (although he has admittedly soured on him a bit in the past year) and he is a HUGE Duke fan. In the 15+ years I’ve been married to my beautiful wife, he has never failed to remind me of the superiority of his beloved Blue Devils. So it was with trepidation I approached last year’s Duke/OSU match-up because I knew he was going to be in town visiting and we most certainly would be watching it together.

Suffice it to say, that butt-whupping was so severe that year that I couldn’t take pleasure in watching my FIL’s team go down. I actually felt bad for him. That was embarassing.

It sure would have been nice if we could have had a repeat performance this year in the B1G/ACC match-up. That was not to be had, unfortunately. Luckily, he’s still smarting from last year’s game that I think he won’t be mentioning this to me at Christmas time.

12/1/2012: Ohio State 70 – Northern Kentucky 43 (5-1, 0-0 Big Ten)

The Buckeyes faced considerably less resistance a few days later as they faced Northern Kentucky but that didn’t solve all the questions Coach Matta had:

“The number one thing I wanted to see is if we would get up off the mat and have a little fight to us,” he said of the Buckeyes bouncing back from Wednesday night’s loss at Cameron Indoor against the second-ranked Blue Devils. “I don’t think we were as effective that way as I wanted to be.”

It wasn’t a complete game but it was nice to see LaQuinton Ross pick up the slack and show some flashes of what everyone is hoping will be a taste of what’s to come.

Week in Preview

12/8/2012 @ 12 PM (BTN) Long Beach State (3-5, 0-0) vs Ohio State (5-1, 0-0)

12/12/2012 @ 7 PM (BTN) Savannah State (5-4, 0-1) vs. Ohio State (5-1, 0-0)

Not a lot to say about these two matchups — they are a couple more snacks as the Buckeyes prepare for the looming match-up against Kansas ten days after taking care of business against Savannah State.

Going into this, one of the marque match-ups of the B1G/ACC Challenge, I’m not sure we had any kind of idea what kind of team Head Coach Thad Matta is fielding this year at Ohio State.

But in true Matta fashion, they came out strong against Duke, taking the fight and physicality to them in the first half and played a solid game overall.

It was definitely a tale of two halves. The first half saw some solid defense all around from the Buckeyes, with Craft obviously leading the way but with both Shannon Scott and Lenzelle Smith, Jr. playing great defense. The Buckeyes dominated the boards in the first half, pulling down as many rebounds (20) as Duke had shot attempts. Half of Ohio State’s rebounds were of the offensive variety. Ohio State looked the better team and looked to be in control. Things looked promising for Ohio State, maintaining the lead without leading scorer Deshaun Thomas sitting on the bench for an extended period of time.

But, of course, it was all because Duke was playing their fourth game of the week, and they were le tired.

Duke came out in the second half and made numerous mini-runs, getting inspired played from Mason Plumlee and Rashard Salami-man. Ohio State weathered them all and maintained a lead deep into the second half.

Deshaun Thomas came out demanding the ball and made some MAN-sized jumpshots. But ultimately, it wasn’t enough. Duke’s defense picked up and Ryan Kelly’s barrage of threes really distanced Duke in second-half.

Even with the loss, there are a lot of things to be happy about this game. Cameron Indoor Stadium is not an easy place to play in. (The advantages for Duke extend beyond the raucous crowd, getting more than their fair share of calls from referees). They played extended minutes without their best scorer, Thomas and Ohio State proved it can hang with a top five team. This could be a potential future match-up in March and we Buckeye fans should have an exciting season to look forward too.

I won’t lie I was one of those guys who questioned whether or not Coach Matta had lost his touch in recruiting. After losing out on several big names to teams like UCLA and Kentucky and Duke I said he probably just lost guys to big name schools. Recently though he lost an Ohio kid to Wisconsin in Nigel Hayes and Noah Vonleh to Indiana I was nervous. It sucks to lose recruits to coaches like Tom Crean and Bo Ryan I can’t tell you with enough fervor how much I dislike those guys. Thad Matta then comes out recently and says that his staff has a plan and knows who they want and not to worry he will get the guys he needs to keep OSU a successful basketball school. I don’t know if I bought in fully to his speech until today where he landed his first recruit for the 2014 season.

Keita Bates-Diop is a 6’7″ 190 lbs 4 star Forward from Normal Illinois. Keita announced from his twitter account @KBD_33 “Official committed to THE Ohio st university!!”. Keita is one of those really special players along the lines of an Evan Turner. He has the ability to do everything on the court. He can score from all over the place and has a wonderful jump shot. Has a huge 7’3″ wingspan that allows him to rebound and block shots with the big men. ESPN ranks him the 27th best player in the 2014 class. Scouts ranks him the 7th best PF in the class. Rivals ranks him the no. 20th best player in 2014. 247sports ranks him the 21st best player. Keita is a huge get for Matta for so many reasons but most importantly because Keita was being pursued heavily by TTUN and many other Natl Heavyweights proving that he hasn’t lost his touch and I was wrong happily. Below you can see his highlights.

The biggest question surrounding the Buckeyes basketball team this season will be how the team will replace Jared Sullinger’s historic production in the paint. Although Sullinger’s career was plagued by back problems, he will go down as one of the most dominant post players in Buckeye history. Sullinger’s departure to the NBA will hurt the Buckeyes on the scoring end but they will get better defensively in the paint with a true center and his name is Amir Williams.

Amir Williams, a 6-11 sophomore who is a former McDonald’s All- American will be counted on to hold down the paint defensively, rebound the basketball and work on his raw offensive game. In limited, yet important action last year, Williams showed he could be counted on defensively by altering and blocking shots down low. He played very well in the Elite Eight versus Syracuse when Sullinger went to the bench early with foul trouble. ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla noted that Williams had a 14% block rate (14 blocks per every 100 shots when he was on the floor,) and Fraschilla even named him to his list of Eight Breakout Players of 2012-13 (ESPN Insider.) In the exhibition game against Walsh, Williams blocked 5 shots and made a huge impact defensively. Even though Thad Matta will miss Sullinger’s offensive production, he will welcome Williams defensive and height advantage down low. With Aaron Craft locking down defensively on the perimeter and Williams locking down the paint, expect this Buckeye team to look much better defensively this season. Maybe Amir Williams will give his teammate competition for B1G Defensive Player of the Year.

Trey McDonald, a 6-8, 240 lb sophomore will give depth to the front court and is built more like Jared Sullinger than Amir Williams. He only made 13 appearances last year, recorded 2 points and averaged 2.9 minutes per game, mostly in mop up duty. Not much has been said about him this off season, but McDonald could get his number called if Williams gets into early foul trouble. He will most likely be asked to do the same as Williams when he enters the game, which would be to play solid defense and rebound the basketball.

Next up in our 2012-2013 position previews are the small forwards. This group consists of one veteran scorer and two sophomores that need to take their games to the next level. First up, preseason All-American Deshaun Thomas.

Deshaun Thomas is 6’7″ Jr. from Fort Wayne, IN. Thomas is the leading scorer returning from last year’s team. He averaged 16 pts/game. Deshaun made a splash in last year’s NCAA tournament. He received accolades from various national networks. He was quoted as saying, “I love to score” which will have a big impact on the buckeyes success this season. One thing that impresses me about Deshaun’s game is his knack for finding open spots in the middle of a zone defense and his talent to hit those mid-range jumpers. Offensively, Thomas will fill the stat sheet as a prototypical small forward, but one key to success this year will be Thomas’ ability to guard other power forwards. Matta’s projected starting line-up will have Thomas in the “four position”. Not really a change from last year, but still an important aspect of the defensive system. This season will likely be Deshaun’s last in a buckeye uniform. I believe he will live up to the hype of his preseason All-American selection.

LaQuinton Ross is a 6’8″ So. from Jackson, MS. Much like Shannon Scott, it remains to be seen if LaQuinton will live up to the expectations placed on him out of high school. Ross has a reputation as a pure shooter. Maybe it is just me, but it seems like teams played a lot of zone defense against the buckeyes over the last couple of years. As a team the buckeyes shot 33% from 3-point range last year. Without a strong low-post scorer this year, I believe it is imperative that the 3-point percentage is closer to 40%. I am looking for Ross to step up and be a zone killer a la John Diebler. His length will create mismatches for opposing defenders which should facilitate his scoring ability.

Sam Thompson is a 6’7″ So. from Chicago, IL. Sam gets the privilege of two introductory photos due to the fact that his head is in danger anytime he jumps around the rim. I don’t care if he is 6’7″; the kid can jump out of the gym. Sam Thompson is definitely the most athletic of the three small forwards. He will provide a spark in whatever role he settles into. I think everyone will agree that the starting line-up will include two of the three players listed in this preview. It will be interesting to see how the minutes are distributed. Reports from practice have noted Thompson developing into a lock down defender. If this carries over to the season, Sam will see plenty of minutes. Sam’s athleticism is unquestioned (just youtube “Sam Thompson Ohio State” for proof), but I believe he needs to continue to develop his fundamentals to reach his full potential.

Please enjoy only one sample of what Sam brings to the table. More please!!