Thoughts, observations, and musings from Ohio State’s ugly preseason loss to No. 20 Cincinnati
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It’s going to be a long two weeks of practice for the Buckeyes after Friday night’s showing in Cincinnati.

For the first time in seven months, The Fighting Jake Dieblers took the floor in a real life basketball game as they traveled down I-71 south to take on the No. 20 Cincinnati Bearcats in a preseason exhibition game. Donations of $25,000 were made during a pregame ceremony to Jay’s Light, the Joe Burrow Foundation, and the Linder Center of Hope, and both teams came out on the floor together while the organizations were honored.

Jake Diebler went with a starting five of Bruce Thornton, Meechie Johnson, Micah Parrish, Evan Mahaffey, and Sean Stewart for the first of two preseason games the Buckeyes will play. Aaron Bradshaw, who transferred in from Kentucky this summer, will be Ohio State’s starting center this season, but missed Friday night’s game after taking an elbow to the head during a practice earlier in the week.

The Bearcats have missed the NCAA Tournament each of the past four seasons, but start the year at No. 20 in the AP Poll in large part because of how much they brought back. Cincinnati brings back four of their top six scorers from last year, including their top three — Dan Skillings, Simas Lukosius, and Day Day Thomas.

They looked the part of a ranked team, too, coming out and taking a 17-point lead on the Buckeyes late in the first half. Cincinnati looked like a team with some continuity and familiarity with each other, and Ohio State... well, they looked like a team with nine new players. Thanks to baskets by Ques Glover, Micah Parrish, and Devin Royal, Ohio State cut the 17-point lead to 10 at halftime, 41-31.

Cincinnati opened the second half on a 20-5 run that put this game out of hand with 10 minutes still left to go. Day Day Thomas stole the ball from Parrish with 8:28 remaining and dished it off to Cincinnati native and one-time Ohio State target Rayvon Griffith, who ran the floor and slammed it home to make it 63-36 Bearcats with 8:28 left to play.

Tonight’s final score from Fifth Third Arena: 80-62

Here are a few observations and takeaways from tonight’s charity exhibition game in Cincinnati:

Which team is supposed to be going fast, again? ​

Aside from the new faces, the theme of this summer was pace. Diebler wants to completely change the speed at which Ohio State plays. He wants to keep opposing teams on their toes, prevent opponents from setting up their defense, and just in general tire teams out.

However, you’d never have known that by watching the first half of Friday’s game. Wes Miller’s team out-Diebler’d Diebler’s team in the first half, racing out to a 26-12 lead within the first 10 minutes. The Bearcats looked bigger, tougher, and much more together than Ohio State did. There were several possessions in the first half where the ball would wind up in someone’s hands with seven or eight seconds left on the shot clock, and that player would wind up dribbling the ball out and taking a contested shot at the buzzer — very little ball movement.

Sean Stewart is a different kind of big​

Stewart played just over eight minutes per game last year and was mostly a rim-runner, making sure to be available under the basket for offensive rebounds, easy dunks, and what not. Part of his reason for transferring was to show that he could do more than that, and he showed a little bit of that expanded bag Friday night.

1:15 into the game, Stewart caught a pass on the right wing from Thornton, shot faked to get his defender in the air, and then drove to the basket, where he was met by another defender at the rack. Stewart went right into his chest, took the contact, and then scored over him to give Ohio State its first basket of the game.

Stewart won’t start at center this year, but there will be times with Bradshaw on the bench when Stewart will slide over and play that position. The mobility and athleticism isn’t something Ohio State had at the center position last year with Felix Okpara.

Depth Chart hints ​

Ohio State’s starting lineup looks set for the most part (assuming Bradshaw is good to go in two weeks for Texas), but we were still interested in who was the first, second, third, and fourth sub of the game, as well as who appeared to have the leg-up on the depth chart.

A few observations:

• John Mobley Jr. was the first player to sub in for Ohio State, 3:24 into the game
• Ivan Njegovan subbed in before Austin Parks
• With Bradshaw out, it was Mahaffey that drew the start at the four, with Stewart sliding to the five.
• “Preferred walk-on” Ques Glover played nine minutes in the first half, while John Mobley Jr. played 10 minutes in the first half
• Ohio State started the second half with Thornton, Mobley, and Johnson all on the floor together

Ohio State will not be good if the shooting is not better​

Okay, this might seem like an obvious one, but some teams can get away with not being great three-point shooting teams if they’re great at other things. Last year’s Houston team finished the year No. 2 in KenPom and made it to the Sweet Sixteen while only shooting 34.7% from three. But the Cougars rebounded the heck out of the ball, were tough as nails, and have been one of the better defensive teams for the past half-decade.

On Friday night, Ohio State was not good when they tried to shoot the long ball, were the far less physical team, and struggled mightily to defend — especially on the perimeter. If Ohio State isn’t going to drastically improve their defense from the last few seasons, then it will have to shoot the ball much better moving forward. You can maybe survive struggling in one of those areas, but not all of those areas.

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