Ohio State defeated its only Exhibition opponent for the year tonight at Value City Arena when they knocked off the Walsh University Cavaliers by a final score of 86-48. Despite Walsh’s lofty preseason ranking (#8 in the NAIA poll), there isn’t much we can take away from this game, though there were some very promising things I noticed. There aren’t too many stats, as everything comes from www.bigtennetwork.com, and they decided not to provide too much.
First off, the defense looks substantially better than last season. This is obviously a function of two things: 1) Switching to man defense, and 2) the fact that we were playing Walsh. While Walsh is a very good team in it’s own right (and extremely well coached), they lack a lot of the talent that would make them truly dangerous on offense. However, it was apparent that the man defense was very dynamic and quite solid all game, taking away a lot of the things Walsh wanted to do and allowing the Buckeyes to get in good position to make plays. The switch to man might make the difference in some of those close games in the Big Ten this year.
The one downside to the man defense is that players will tend to commit more fouls than in the zone. Kyle Madsen managed to foul out of the game with 8 minutes left, after going into the half with 3. This was the first time in his Buckeye career that he had fouled out. In fact, last season only 5 times did an OSU player foul out, and those were split among 3 players! That’s a pretty impressive stat, but expect that to go up with the increase in defensive intensity this year.
On the other side of the ball, Ohio State looked quite impressive. Matta’s typical fast-paced style, pushing the ball down the court quick to try to catch the defense off-balance, was in full display tonight and it didn’t disappoint. Several Buckeyes were able to blitz to the open rim for a jam off a dish pass, including a sweet play from Lighty to Buford where Buford looked like he had been shot out of a cannon.
The communcation and teamwork on the team is excellent this year. The Buckeyes spent the entire game shifting around their lineup in order to get a feel for which sets of players seem to work best together. Granted we were playing Walsh (you’ll read this phrase a lot tonight), but I noticed that it didn’t really seem to matter who we had out on the court at any particular time. The team operated extremely well together, spread the ball around, looked for the open shot, and generally had great shot selection.
However, the offense did seem to have trouble on occasion getting the ball to fall, or by causing a silly turnover. The 86 points scored probably could have topped 100 if the Buckeyes hadn’t allowed themselves to play sloppy on occasion on the offensive side of the ball. Hopefully these sorts of things work themselves out in practice quickly.
On a player by player basis, Ohio State performed extremely well. The Buckeyes shot the ball from behind the arc extremely well tonight, with no less than 8 players (Turner, Diebler, Hill, Simmons, Lighty, Buford, Offutt, Kecman) taking shots from three. PJ Hill shot 42% last year from the stripe, and seemed even better this year with a super smooth stroke. It looks like he’s worked on his shooting during the summer to improve his role on the team. Kecman’s three came towards the end of the game, and was a very pleasant surprise, giving us another offensive dimension for teams to have to account for.
Also notable was Offutt’s improved performance. He drove the lane and found himself fighting through traffic for the basket, often drawing fouls like a Junior or Senior point guard. He has definitely taken a step forward this year and will likely be a big contributor during the course of the season.
Turner, Diebler and Lighty have picked up where they left off from last season. It was especially great to see Lighty back on the floor and contributing in a huge way. He did have some moments when he seemed a little comfortable with his feet, which is probably a holdover from his injury. Hopefully that works itself out over the next couple games. Diebler is still a danger any time he gets the ball in his hands outside, and Turner is a danger anywhere on the court recording a double double (15 points, 14 rebounds (!!) ) several steals, several blocks and generally wreaking havoc all over the floor.
Buford has definitely taken a step forward too. He had several plays that showed a great growth in his knowledge of the game, including one where he was wide open at three in the right corner with a wide open lane to the basket. Instead of shooting the three, he drove the lane for the easier shot and to attempt to draw a foul from an incoming defender. He didn’t get the foul, but did put the basket in. Thats an example of great Basketball IQ, knowing to take a higher percentage shot for the chance to go to force a foul and go to the line. Buford has also improved his jump shot, as evidenced by a beautiful bucket from just inside the arc off the left corner with a hand in his face. He almost makes it look easy out there.
Simmons looks much better playing the shooting guard than he did point last year. He drained 10 points on the game and played solid defense during the course to solidify himself as the number two shooting guard.
The Centers generally looked ok, though clearly showed their youth. Kyle Madsen fouled out early, having difficulty controlling his man, and scored only 4 points on the game. Zisis “Big Z” Sarikopoulos had 4 fouls, but looked tough down low, registering several blocks (I counted 3), and often showing good drive to the basket. Unfortunately, he seems a little tight in the hips, and is a little slow moving which limits his defensive ability any time he has to leave the paint.
Overall, it was a very solid game. While it didn’t tell us much, it was definitely enjoyable to see the Buckeye’s back in action on the hard-wood!
Ohio State plays their first game of the season this coming Monday, November 9th against Alcorn State in Columbus. You can see that game at 7:00pm on the Big Ten Network.
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