Ohio State Basketball: Buckeyes aren’t just good at football
By David Wysong
The Ohio State football team has been dominant this year, but they aren’t the only dominant team on campus – the Ohio State basketball team is really good.
The Ohio State Buckeyes are No. 1 in the College Football Playoff rankings as OSU is one of the best football teams in the country. However, Ohio State is not just a football school – the have a dominant basketball team too.
The basketball team is currently ranked No. 6 in the country and prior to this week they already had wins over a solid Cincinnati team and they defeated Villanova – who was ranked No. 10 at the time – by 25 points.
They had another tough game on Wednesday as they traveled to Chapel Hill to take on the No. 7 North Carolina Tar Heels – one of the blue bloods of college basketball.
UNC head coach Roy Williams has built an elite program there as they are consistently one of the top teams every year and they have one of the best players in the country in Cole Anthony.
Well, guess what? Ohio State blew them out too.
The Buckeyes went into Chapel Hill and dominated the Tar Heels, winning 74-49, giving North Carolina its second-worst home loss in the last 56 seasons, according to a tweet from ESPN’s Bryan Ives.
This Ohio State team has tons of weapons as they have three guys averaging double-digits in points per game including Kaleb Wesson, Duane Washington Jr. – who scored 18 against UNC – and D.J. Carton. They also have five other guys who are scoring seven points per game or more in Luther Muhammad, E.J. Liddell, Andre Wesson, CJ Walker, and Kyle Young.
That isn’t what makes them so good though. Their defense is elite.
Ohio State is fourth in the country in points allowed per game, only allowing 52.3 points per game. They are also No. 12 in the country defensive rebounds per game with 30.88.
This defense is suffocating and that was especially the case on Wednesday as they held North Carolina to 27.4 percent shooting. That kind of defense can win some ball games.
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We are all rooting for the Ohio State football team right now but once their season is over we still have someone else to root for. The Buckeyes’ basketball team’s dominant defense coupled with its weapons on the offensive end could make them a prime candidate to go on a deep tournament run come March.