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2021-2022 Ohio State Men's Basketball

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While on his official visit to Ohio State that began June 18, Tuimoloau spent time meeting with Ohio State men’s basketball coach Chris Holtmann and his staff. Tuimoloau was told he is welcome to play, and both Holtmann and football coach Ryan Day will work on the details with Tuimoloau and his family in the coming months.

Tuimoloau announced his Ohio State commitment on July 4. In a graphic posted to his personal Instagram page, which has more than 17,000 followers, Tuimoloau included one photo of himself in a scarlet throwback basketball jersey wearing No. 15.



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18. OHIO STATE

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247Sports: The loss of Duane Washington hurts, but the return of E.J. Liddell along with Justice Sueing and Kyle Young — plus a 2021 recruiting class that includes Akron (Ohio) St. Vincent-St. Mary four-star shooting guard Malaki Branham — OSU should be in good shape to contend for a Big Ten title again when the 2021-22 season tips off.

CBS Sports: “Duane Washington's decision to remain in the NBA Draft (despite the possibility that he'll go unselected) is an obvious blow to Ohio State's roster. But Chris Holtmann is still expected to return six of the top eight scorers from a team that earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.”
 
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Russell gives the Scarlet and Gray a similar type of player to the one departing the program. Like Washington, Russell is a high-volume scorer who has the range to hit from well beyond the three-point line but can also handle the ball and get to the basket.

Coming out of Peabody Magnet High School in Alexandria, Louisiana, Russell was a three-star prospect in the 2017 class and the 17th best combo guard in the country, per the 247Sports Composite. After committing to Louisana, Russell continued to work on his game and got better every season. As a freshman in 2017-18, Russell averaged 15.1 minutes and 5.7 points per game. By his senior season a year ago, those numbers jumped to 33.6 minutes and 17.2 points per contest.

While Russell's career field goal percentage (41.0) and three-point percentage (37.5) remained relatively the same throughout his career, it's worth pointing out that he took 7.3 three-point attempts per game as a senior, making 40 percent of those attempts. Washington, by comparison, took 7.7 three pointers last year and made 37.4 percent of his attempts.

“It's no secret that they lost their top scorer, so me averaging 18 a game last year, I would come in to score the ball, play the combo, be in different pick and roll situations and help with scoring,” Russel continued to London.
 
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Overall, the roster looks deep and versatile. Some things need to go right on the health and development front, no doubt, but if things break in Ohio State's favor, this looks like the kind of roster Holtmann should be expected to take to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament for the first time since his arrival in the summer of 2017.
 
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I think the roster finally has a tough overall look to it. It seems we had some "softness" to the roster in the past, hate to say that, but other than my man Kyle and a couple others, not real tough which is needed in conference. The additions to the roster look to add some toughness from what I can tell and Zed being more seasoned along with Kyle's return, is huge. I dont want to talk much about JTT in these threads because he'll be eating Offenses soon enough but what a nice January addition he'll be huh?
 
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Certainly there is very good depth in the program, and that is a strength that I hope and expect Holtmann to leverage. I know last year he ended up cutting the bench minutes a bit more than I liked at the end of the year, but the first couple of months he was mixing and matching the player to the situation really well.

The latent but very real benefit to having quality bench players is you can demand your starters play with a hard edge, not budge an inch to avoid fouls, and keep throwing talented guys out there to absorb even more fouls. In the NC vs Gonzaga this past spring, Baylor didn't have the most talented big in that particular game, but they had a few big, strong, athletic bodies who rotated and kept banging the whole game, and they maintained strong defense in the post in spite of committing a lot of fouls. You really need that kind of depth to not sacrifice easy buckets in the paint.

This year I feel like OSU has the kind of depth that they can rotate 2-3 guys at every position and can really push for aggressive defense out of the starters knowing they have quantity and quality both on the roster. Especially important is having athletic bigs who play tough. Just gotta keep the defensive pressure on in the paint, JTT could help in that regard but they should be OK without him.
 
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According to CBS Sports college basketball insider Jon Rothstein, Ohio State will face Seton Hall as one of the two games in the Beach Division of the Fort Myers Tip-Off. The other game will feature Florida against California with the winner of each contest playing each other in the championship game and the losers facing off in a third-place contest. The event will also feature a Palms Division where, per Rothstein, Southern Utah will face Yale and Milwaukee will face Bowling Green.

This game will have extra meaning for one Buckeye, as the Scarlet and Gray hired former Pirate assistant coach Tony Skinn in late May to replace the departing Terry Johnson. Skinn coached with the Pirates the past two seasons, helping Seton Hall reach the NCAA Tournament for a fourth straight year in 2019.
 
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