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2019-2020 Ohio State Men's Basketball (Official Thread)

BY BEATING MICHIGAN, OHIO STATE SHOWS LEGITIMATE GROWTH WHILE PUTTING DISTANCE BETWEEN CURRENT WINNING WAYS AND ROUGH JANUARY

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Kaleb Wesson stood outside the visiting locker room at Crisler Arena with an inch-long cut on his left cheek and a finger-length gash at the base of his neck that he says stemmed from a transition sequence on Tuesday night. A few feet to his left was Kyle Young, wearing a No. 50 jersey without his name on the back because Michigan’s Zavier Simpson had ripped his own No. 25 jersey in the final minutes.

The battle scars and alternate jersey served as unforeseen souvenirs from a 61-58 victory that Ohio State had secured only 10 minutes beforehand. They also represented a couple of the remnants the Buckeyes can take from a 40-minute tussle so physical that Wesson struggled to describe it.

“Like, I need words? I don't know if I can put that into words,” Wesson said, breaking out a giant smile. “My boy got his jersey ripped off. I got scratched by a saber tooth. Like, shit.”

Duane Washington Jr., standing directly to Wesson’s left, jumped into the conversation.

“It was a tough one,” he said. “We knew it was a Big Ten road game. Especially here, the Team Up North. We knew it was going to be a battle. It's a rivalry for both of us. We knew it was going to be a very physical game going into it.”

If two cuts and a replacement jersey are the sacrifices of extending a winning streak and putting what happened in January further in the rear-view mirror, Ohio State will do that deal any day of the week.

Only a couple weeks ago, Chris Holtmann’s team found itself mired in an abysmal first month of the calendar year for the second straight season. A loss to West Virginia on Dec. 29 sparked a four-game losing streak that included a four-point home loss to Wisconsin. The Buckeyes ended the downslide by beating Nebraska, but they followed that up by dropping games to Penn State and Minnesota. Suspensions to Luther Muhammad and Washington and various minor injuries compounded a dismal few weeks.

In the past three games, Ohio State has finally begun to see the light.

A 12-point road win against Northwestern to end January. A nine-point home victory versus Indiana six days later. On Tuesday, a three-point win at Michigan.

“I think it says something about the character of the group,” Holtmann said. “I think it says something about their resolve. It says something to the leadership we have in there from a couple of the older guys. I've seen progress with our guys in the last couple weeks.”

Entire article: https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio...tting-distance-between-winning-ways-and-rough
 
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I know this season is not satisfying, and not what we all hoped for. It is a disappointment to an extent because they don't seem to be meeting expectations. Having your best defensive player miss the entire season is the exact type of event that the casual fan overlooks and chalks lackluster results up to bad coaching, though.

They are in a position where the talent on the team is somewhat low-ceiling & they need all hands on deck to really be able to compete with the best teams in the conference. After a hot start, this is looking like a very ho-hum season.
 
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Still not ready to give up on this team at all. This is the weirdest fucking B1G season I’ve ever seen. The conference makes zero sense. I still have a gut feeling the team is going to look better come March.

I definitely agree they can look better in March -- we saw what they CAN do -- they just need to remember how to fucking do it. But I definitely don't have any confidence that its going to happen.

This has got to be the most Jekyll/Hyde OSU team I've ever seen -- but at this point I'm kinda thinking Mr. Hyde may have murdered Dr Jekyll and eaten his face off, because we haven't seen that good team in almost 2 months now.
 
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I didn't think we were going to be a great team this season and with the B1G being a bloodbath, this isn't that much worse than I expected, all things considered. It is a bit worse, though, because I thought DJ would be settled in, EJ would be like frosh Tate and a solid contributor, one of Duane or Luther would be a reliable starter, etc...

That said, it is starting to feel like a trend with Holtmann teams where they aren't necessarily playing their best basketball in the back-end of their seasons. I am not sure if he is an above average coach for the B1G. I am not sure his teams develop and improve much over the course of the entire season. I just don't know, and his recruiting is solid but seems to favor wings/forwards quite heavily and I don't think we are going to achieve much or any talent separation from other top half B1G teams and I am not sure we are placing enough of a premium on post and guard play.

Starting to feel like once every 5-6 years things might click into place where we win the B1G or go on a deep tourney run but most of the rest of the time we will be a high middle-ish conference team and a 6-9 seed type. I dunno. But where it felt like we were on a positive upward trajectory before, the future now seems a lot more cloudy.
 
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I definitely agree they can look better in March -- we saw what they CAN do -- they just need to remember how to fucking do it. But I definitely don't have any confidence that its going to happen.

This has got to be the most Jekyll/Hyde OSU team I've ever seen -- but at this point I'm kinda thinking Mr. Hyde may have murdered Dr Jekyll and eaten his face off, because we haven't seen that good team in almost 2 months now.
The B1G in general has been all over the place so I wouldn’t single out OSU. The same Wisconsin team that was pummeling Sparty at home and butchered OSU is the same team that got obliterated on the road by Minnesota two games ago.

I’ve never seen anything like it. A previous poster said you could flip a coin most B1G games and accurately predict the winner.
 
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