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2013-14 Ohio State Men's Basketball (Official Thread)

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Jake said:
I hope that happens too, but that really wasn't what I was responding to in my post.

You had asked how I felt about ND after they beat Duke. Well, they lost to Indiana State and North Dakota State before playing the Buckeyes. As for their big win over the Dookies, they followed it up by losing to NC State and Georgia Tech. So, to answer your original question, I'm still not impressed by Notre Dame.
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But in reality, ND had Grant when they played OSU and didn't have him against the ACC teams. So it was a legit win against an NCAA tourney caliber team at the time they played them. OSU has had a couple close losses against two of the three best teams they will play in the B1G. It's not going to take an unusual amount of improvement to change those close losses into close wins.
 
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bkochmc said:
Not to put words into Jake's mouth... but I'm pretty sure his point is that if Thomas would have stayed in Columbus his experience and scoring capacity would have Ohio State as one of the top 5 teams in the country, not that Thomas didn't make the best decision for him and his family.
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That's half of what he said, yes. In the other half, he strongly suggests that DT made the wrong choice in leaving OSU a year early, applying his own definition of right and wrong.
 
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At half way through the season it seems the team is still trying to find its identity)and who their go to guy(s) are. I am not overly concerned knowing that the end game is the NCAA tournament and how they respond there. It is a team that has some good experienced players and who have been there which bodes well for a tourney run. Don't forget that team that made it too the finals last year and how they looked for most of the season.
 
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buckeyebri said:
At half way through the season it seems the team is still trying to find its identity)and who their go to guy(s) are. I am not overly concerned knowing that the end game is the NCAA tournament and how they respond there. It is a team that has some good experienced players and who have been there which bodes well for a tourney run. Don't forget that team that made it too the finals last year and how they looked for most of the season.
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I don't think this team has a go to guy...maybe (probably) down the road Loving will be that guy, but given how experience-laden this team is this year, putting crunch time shots on a freshman seems a little off-balance to me.

They'll respond. The team looked a bit deflated all day on Sunday to me and once Iowa got on a run in the 2nd half, things kind of snowballed. Once the bubble burst against MSU, I kind of wondered what we'd see on Sunday.

I expect we'll see a renewed focus and energy against Minny.
 
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smith288 said:
I don't think there's any player more frustrating to watch than Amir Williams. All that size... Just zero game. It's like he plays with the mentality of a 5'10" guy or something.
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I think he plays lazy and by that I don't only mean physically lazy but mentally as well. He is playing checkers while everyone else is playing chess on a mental level or at least that is what it looks like to me. I think the reason he drops/mishandles so many passes is that he does not anticipate them coming quickly enough. He seems to be a step behind the game often times. I think this leads to being physically slow and out of position at times leading to poor positioning, poor rebounding, turnovers and fouling. He will have spurts where he plays pretty well in these areas but it is not yet the norm.
 
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DZ83CK said:
But in reality, ND had Grant when they played OSU and didn't have him against the ACC teams. So it was a legit win against an NCAA tourney caliber team at the time they played them. OSU has had a couple close losses against two of the three best teams they will play in the B1G. It's not going to take an unusual amount of improvement to change those close losses into close wins.
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ND had Grant when they lost to Indiana State and North Dakota State. We can go back and forth about Notre Dame all season and it won't change a thing.

The fact is the Buckeyes are 65th in floor percentage in the NCAA. For those who don't know floor percentage is the ratio of scoring possessions to total possessions, a measure of offensive efficiency. It's one thing to be a defense-first team but you still have to score some points, too. The 65th ranking is somewhat inflated to this point given some of the cream puffs played in December. If the Bucks don't figure it out on that end it that 65th ranking will get worse as the conference schedule continues.

I'm not sure where the improvement will originate. Craft, Smith and Thompson are what they are - good, scrappy players who have not been able to score on a consistent basis. Ross is leading the way in scoring but he needs some help. Perhaps Loving will emerge as the season progresses. Until then, defense is going to have to lead the way.
 
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Jake said:
ND had Grant when they lost to Indiana State and North Dakota State. We can go back and forth about Notre Dame all season and it won't change a thing.

The fact is the Buckeyes are 65th in floor percentage in the NCAA. For those who don't know floor percentage is the ratio of scoring possessions to total possessions, a measure of offensive efficiency. It's one thing to be a defense-first team but you still have to score some points, too. The 65th ranking is somewhat inflated to this point given some of the cream puffs played in December. If the Bucks don't figure it out on that end it that 65th ranking will get worse as the conference schedule continues.

I'm not sure where the improvement will originate. Craft, Smith and Thompson are what they are - good, scrappy players who have not been able to score on a consistent basis. Ross is leading the way in scoring but he needs some help. Perhaps Loving will emerge as the season progresses. Until then, defense is going to have to lead the way.
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Might we see some of Kam Williams, he's suppose to be a scorer correct?
 
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AuTX Buckeye said:
Might we see some of Kam Williams, he's suppose to be a scorer correct?
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He is supposed to be an excellent shooter but I am thinking that they are going to redshirt him this season. He missed so much practice time with his mono that he is probably pretty far behind with regard to the defense and offense and why waste a redshirt year this late in the season. I doubt if he has practice much with the first team.
 
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Sibert shot 30% at OSU, if he kept that up he wouldn't be any help. I am starting to get concerned that many guys at OSU now just take winning for granted and are not putting forth the effort in the offseason to improve their shooting as much as they ought to.
 
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I'm getting a bit annoyed at people claiming the reason for players' poor performance is lack of effort.

Sorry, but you just don't fucking know. Craft can't hit the ocean from the fucking beach, but I'm not buying that the reason has anything to do with effort. The same is true of Amir Williams. He seems to me like a nice kid who just can't very often summon up the kind of emotion that it takes to be great. I don't accept this as a matter of effort.
 
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MaxBuck said:
I'm getting a bit annoyed at people claiming the reason for players' poor performance is lack of effort.

Sorry, but you just don't fucking know. Craft can't hit the ocean from the fucking beach, but I'm not buying that the reason has anything to do with effort. The same is true of Amir Williams. He seems to me like a nice kid who just can't very often summon up the kind of emotion that it takes to be great. I don't accept this as a matter of effort.
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I can't think of one other team that Matta has had at OSU were there have been nearly as many Senior and Junior guards and wings shooting under or at 32% on 3s. How do you explain all of these guys struggling except Ross against B1G competition? There has to be some reason these guys miss so many open shots and MSU's guards seem to hit a lot more of theirs. I don't believe most of these guys were practicing shooting nearly as much as they ought to have. And that's not just based on the results, we even heard from Scott, who reported he had stepped up his shooting practice and named the number of 3s he shot daily, but it wasn't even that many shots considering how poorly he shot the ball last year. Sometimes when you have great teams all the time, complacency happens.
 
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