One of the guys who’s been in the program for a full season, but we haven’t had a lot of opportunity to see on the court, is Lenzelle Smith. As a true point guard he lost the battle for solid playing minutes to Aaron Craft last season, and was only able to see some time in mop-up duty near the ends of games. What we did get to see, however, was quite impressive.
Hometown: Zion, Illinois
High School: Zion-Benton
Position: Guard (1, 2, 3)
Year: Sophomore
Height: 6-4
Weight: 205
High School Awards:
– Illinois Class 4A First Team(2010)
– High School Academic All-American (2010)
– First Team All-State (2009)
Lenzelle Smith was a three star athlete by scout.com out of Zion-Benton high school. He’s a left-handed player with a smooth shooting stoke and solid ability to distribute the ball. We regularly saw him last season on the fast break making a sweet pass to a teammate (often Sibert or Weatherspoon) to set them up for a layup or dunk.
Smith is also a very cerebral guy who excels in the classroom, as noted by his Academic All-American award in High School. The players who participated in that All-American grade had an average of 3.6 GPA all told.
Last Season:
As usual, stats come from Buckeyes Beat blog.
| Season | GP | MPG | PPG | FG% | 3FG% | FT% | APG | RPG | BPG | SPG |
| 2010-11 | 20 | 4.5 | 1.2 | 45.0 | 12.5 | 83.3 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
Strengths:
As mentioned, Lenzelle Smith is a solid, if streaky, shooter, particularly from long range. He can shoot the three off both the pass and the dribble, making him a dynamic scorer. His size makes him a tough matchup for many guards who he can bully past with physical play, and his speed will make him tricky for many forwards who he can blow past to the basket. As such, his skills and physical attributes make him a great multipositional player on offense.
As a point guard, he is an excellent ball distributor. He combines that with wonderful Basketball IQ, making him a dangerous individual with the ball in his hands. With a host of good players surrounding him, he can make a basketball team very nearly lethal. When his own shooting skills are added in defenses will have a tough time while he’s on the floor.
Weaknesses:
Lenzelle Smith has one glaring weakness that contributed to his lack of playing time last season. Smith is merely an ok defender, which is nearly a kiss of death on Matta’s teams. He needed to slim down a bit in order to help him keep up with his opponents on the perimeter. He lost 30 pounds in the off-season this year, so it will be interesting to see if that helps him any on defense. He also needs to work on his man-to-man defense in order to better fit in with Matta’s plans for the defense.
Lastly, Smith needs work on his ball-handling skills. As a point guard, it’s critical that he be able to maintain ball-control, particularly when driving the lane. If he enters the game with weak ball-handling skills, he will be easy pickings for strong-defensive point guards of Aaron Craft’s style.
Role for the Team:
If Smith can improve his defensive ability sufficiently, he’ll see a lot more time on the floor. When he arrived at Ohio State he was slotted to be a point guard in Thad Matta’s system. He could still play that position, and give the Buckeyes a fantastic size advantage against most other college point guards. His shooting ability would also enhance OSU’s offensive threat with him on the court.
His skills would also allow him to fill in at the shooting guard and small forward positions. His size makes him capable of playing defense at all of those positions, and he has demonstrated that he can use that size to rebound effectively. He’s also not afraid to post up in the lane, and could be an effective inside/outside kind of player.
Expect to see Lenzelle Smith get more than a few minutes for this team during the early season. Also expect to see him fill in at multiple positions as Matta plays around with different lineups looking for good chemistry. If he proves himself to be a solid defender early in the season, you can expect that Smith will be asked to participate as a role player intermittently through the Big Ten season, much in the same way that DeShaun Thomas participated last season.
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