Ohio State Basketball: Buckeyes resume play after ‘good loss’
The Ohio State basketball team entered Sunday’s game at Minnesota 9-0 but the Buckeyes suffered their first loss of the season. It should have been a good learning experience and the loss may have come at the right time.
Last season the Ohio State basketball team was 12-1 before suffering the first conference loss to Michigan State which began a five game skid. That was the beginning of the full-time Big Ten schedule and the Buckeyes finished the regular season 18-13.
Now Chris Holtmann’s squad can work on the things they need to improve on before resuming conference play as they will have three more non-conference games before facing Wisconsin.
Tonight Ohio State will face an overmatched SE Missouri St. team, an excellent Kentucky team on Saturday and West Virginia December 29. Three wins during that stretch would certainly please coach Holtmann.
However, I’m sure he is more concerned about his players cleaning up the issues that contributed to the Buckeyes’ loss before they face the Wisconsin Badgers when the Big Ten schedule resumes.
The 38.3 percent shooting didn’t help the cause but every team has a rough night from the field every now and then. I’ll focus on the things that are necessary to win in the Big Ten whether the shots are dropping or not.
Minnesota shot 54.4 percent from the field and Marcus Carr scored 35 points. You won’t win many conference games allowing teams to make over half their shots and a player scoring nearly 20 more points than his season average.
The Gophers had a 40-28 rebounding advantage. The Buckeyes don’t have the size many Big Ten teams do but it’s important they don’t allow any to have a 12 rebound edge.
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I’m sure defense and rebounding will be a point of emphasis for coach Holtmann during the next three games. He has been through a Big Ten schedule twice now and he knows these two things are as important as the talent he has on his roster. The good thing is that every player on the team realizes it now and there are three games to improve on each before conference play resumes.