COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State basketball unofficially opened the season Thursday night with an 81-63 exhibition win against Division II UNC Pembroke. Junior center Micah Potter led the Buckeyes with 13 points, and grabbed six rebounds, in 10 minutes off the bench. Sophomore center Kaleb Wesson had 12 points and 10 rebounds in 16 minutes. OSU opens the season next Wednesday at Cincinnati.
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Here are 10 things that stood out from our first look at this year’s Ohio State team.
1. It’s always funny to see how coaches dress for exhibition games. They wear suits, and Chris Holtmann tried on a sharp blue number with a faint checkered pattern. But they don’t wear ties. At least Holtmann didn’t, and neither did his assistants. It’s like a loose collar denotes in some way that this game means less than all of the others to follow. It does, but the more casual look didn’t quite match Holtmann’s demeanor after his team gave the ball away 21 times Thursday.
“Do I seem irritable?” Holtmann asked. “A little bit.”
I pointed out to him that he seemed rather on edge considering the stakes of what his team just went through. There weren’t any. It was a tuneup. But those turnovers are bothersome for a coach who saw too much of that at the start of last season, and saw them creep back up during the 24 practices the Buckeyes had leading up to the exhibition.
“Frustrated probably to some degree, because the turnover issue is something we’ve dealt with, with some returners,” Holtmann said. “So my expectation is a little bit higher. I have to do a better job communicating that. Whether that means sitting them more or whatever, I’ve gotta do a better job on that end.”
Earlier on in his news conference, he was a little more blunt, saying: “As coaches we just gotta help them make better decisions. If not we’re gonna be in a situation where … I’m not playing guys extended minutes that can’t take care of the ball. Not doing it.”
2. Holtmann didn’t go out of his way to single out players. It was one game after all, and he did say the ball security was better in the team’s scrimmage win against Xavier last weekend. But you can look at the stat sheet and follow the flow of the game to figure out which players are at the front of his mind.
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Sophomore wing Musa Jallow had a team-high five turnovers. Junior forward Andre Wesson, who started on the wing, had four turnovers.
Wesson is expected to be more aggressive this year, and more of an offensive initiator, which means handling the ball more than he’s been used to in his college career. That will be an adjustment, and he seemed to be forcing the issue a bit Thursday. But Holtmann also said Wesson had three assists and no turnovers against Xavier, so there have been flashes of good.
“Andre is gonna handle the ball for us a little bit more, so that aspect of his game needs to continue to grow, and it will. I believe it will,” Holtmann said.
There were stretches when Wesson was playing power forward, and that’s a big spot for him. He’s already Ohio State’s most versatile defender, but Holtmann wants that position to also be a playmaker, which puts a premium on Wesson’s passing. He had two assists Thursday, and another sequence when he went sprinting toward the sideline to keep a ball in bounds. That extra possession ended with Luther Muhammad making a pair of free throws.
3. Holtmann pulled C.J. Jackson immediately after committing a turnover in the first half. Jackson only had two turnovers for the game. One careless pass into the post got picked off and led to a bucket on the other end. That was enough for Holtmann to bench his starting point guard for a spell.
“Guys should know now what they can and can’t do,” Holtmann said. “We had primary ballhandlers today, guys that have handled the ball for us before, and just didn’t make great decisions. We’ll get better in those areas … C.J. handled the ball a lot for us last year and had turnover issues early. He got those corrected. He’s gotta move more in that direction.”
4. Ohio State really struggled with turning the ball over last year, and dropped a couple of games in Portland during a PK80 Invitational that ended up being a kind of low point in the season. In December, the Buckeyes were in the mid-200s nationally in turnover percentage. They finished No. 84. So there was a drastic turnaround. That doesn’t make early issues again excusable, but there’s evidence to suggest they can get it fixed.
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What’s worrisome is the schedule at the start of the season with road games against Cincinnati and Creighton sandwiched around a home game against a spunky mid-major opponent in Fort Wayne. That’s why Holtmann had a heightened level of irritation after an exhibition.
5. So that was the bad, and really the only glaring thing that stuck out as an issue OSU will have to work through at the start of the season. The Buckeyes didn’t shoot the ball great. They were 44.3 percent from the field, but 20 percent (5-for-25) from the 3-point line. Some of those numbers took a dip because some end-of-the-bench guys were chucking the ball around a bit at the end of the game, but it was a poor shooting night nonetheless.
Jackson (3-for-10), Jallow (1-for-7), Duane Washington Jr. (2-for-8) and Keyshawn Woods (0-for-3) collectively were inefficient on the offensive end.
“I’m not as worried about our shooting, because I think some of that is you’re getting a feel, and jitters,” Holtmann said.
He thinks this can be a good 3-point shooting team. Jackson shot the ball well last year, Woods has shot the 3 well in his previous stops at Charlotte and Wake Forest, and Washington has a good-looking jump shot that could make him a surprise scoring contributor this year. Holtmann noted that Woods made a couple of 3s and had 15 points against Xavier.
6. Woods didn’t start, which was somewhat surprising. Jackson, Muhammad, Andre Wesson, Kyle Young and Kaleb Wesson started. That was the same starting lineup Holtmann used in the scrimmage against Xavier. You’d think Woods, a fifth-year transfer who averaged double-figures in the ACC, would be a lock to start. There’s some sound reasoning, though, in starting Muhammad ahead of him.
“Right now that’s our best defensive (lineup), but Keyshawn could really start,” Holtmann said. “I like an experienced guard coming off the bench with an inexperienced guard. So right now, I think our starting lineup will be very fluid. (Woods) is gonna play starter minutes. He could definitely be in that starting role. It’s just I like him coming off with another inexperienced guard.”
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7. Muhammad looks like he’s going to bring a lot of energy to the lineup, and right now it seems he’s positioned to be the most impactful freshman. That’s not surprising given he was the highest-rated player in the recruiting class, but he’s got an edge to him, is a good on-ball defender and has the ballhandling ability to beat defenders off the dribble.
He finished 3-for-5 from the field with nine points, three assists and one turnover in 17 minutes. His lone made 3 came off a quick crossover dribble into a step-back shot. He didn’t appear to be playing point guard in the half court, but he did start the break a few times, including once when he fed a nice bounce pass to Andre Wesson for a two-hand slam early in the second half.
Muhammad is still learning how to play defense within a system, and will certainly have his hurdles this year like any freshman would, but he’s going to be an important piece.
“I’ve been known for my defense, so that comes first,” Muhammad said. “Be a high intensity guy and try to set the tone with C.J. and the rest of the guys on the floor. … It’s just been a learning process, learning how to play the type of defense we play, staying in the gap, learning the offense, learning all the plays and just being a great teammate coming to work every day.”
8. Not sure how much freshmen Jaedon LeDee and Justin Ahrens will be a part of the regular rotation this year. They seem to have some understanding of that.
“I’m not sure how much I’ll play this year, but whenever my name is called I promise to give my 100 percent effort and fulfill my role for coach Holtmann and the university,” Ahrens said.
LeDee, who very much looks the part physically but will have to adjust to playing the big man’s game, said he’s still trying to figure out where exactly he fits. He was very active Thursday, though, finishing with nine points and seven rebounds in 15 minutes. He got an extended look at the end of the game.
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9. The problem for LeDee is that he probably isn’t quite ready to be used as a power forward in a lineup alongside Kaleb Wesson or Micah Potter, which makes him the third man at center right now. Wesson and Potter were efficient in a game in which Ohio State held a notable size advantage.
Potter was assertive, making all four of his field goal attempts and finishing each one through a foul.
“I think Micah did some really good things,” Holtmann said. “We all know with Micah offensively, he’s always really been a guy who can do some things. He can shoot the ball. He’s got great lift around the rim. He’s gotten to where he can catch balls. It’s defense and defensive rebounding at the end of the day for him. Offensively he’s really gifted in some areas. I thought our guys did a great job finding him, and he did a great job of attacking the rim.”
Potter wasn’t put into many of the positions that gave him trouble defensively last year, namely ball screens that force him to either guard someone on the perimeter or roll with a screener. That remains a work in progress for him, and moving forward he’ll face stiffer tests. But he looked dialed in for the first “game” of what will be an important season for him.
10. There was a brief stretch — very brief, like two minutes — when Potter and Kaleb Wesson played together. We’ve asked Holtmann about that a lot, and Potter has expressed an interest in playing more of a power forward role in a lineup with Wesson. But don’t expect much of that moving forward. Holtmann made Thursday’s brief arrangement sound more like a flow of the game thing that only happened because it was an exhibition and that allowed some room for experimentation.
“Today’s day and age, it’s hard to play guys like that (together),” he said. “On rare occasions, when you’re playing two traditional bigs, it’s something I’d like to look at. But 95 percent of teams don’t play that anymore. A lot of it is dictated by your ball screen coverage. We have mountains of film to watch and see how guys can guard one-on-one and in space. There could be times that it’s looked at, but it’s not going to be a steady diet.”
(Photo of Chris Holtmann: Jason Mowry / Getty Images)