Ohio State Basketball: How would a team of Buckeyes do in the NBA

In the past decade and a half, Ohio State has been one of the more elite basketball schools in the country.

This is quite the accomplishment considering that the school is more of a football school than a basketball school, however, while sports are currently on hold. This is the perfect time to look at fun hypotheticals and in true Ohio State vs Everyone mentality, I decided to look at how a team full of Ohio State alumni would be if they were all on one team in the NBA.

After looking at the list of all of the Ohio State players in the league, I realized that there are only four former Ohio State players in the NBA. So I took to liberty to make some executive decisions and I decided to say that as it is widely known if LeBron James went to college he would have gone to Ohio State.

I used League Simulator.eu which only requires five players on each roster. Then they simulate a season, so with the four current Ohio State graduates and LeBron James, the roster is set.

The opening roster is Mike Conley at point guard, D’Angelo Russell at shooting guard, Evan Turner at small forward, LeBron James at power forward, and Keita Bates-Diop at the center spot.

This is taking the small-ball concept of the NBA to an extreme. However, it is the best that can be done with no one standing over 6’8″ coming from Ohio State on an NBA roster.

In the simulation, the Ohio State team won 48 games and it was enough to make the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference. In the first round of the playoffs, they faced off against the Indiana Pacers.

The Buckeyes gave the Pacers a really good run and even took the team to 6 games. However, they were defeated in the series at the Schottenstein Center in a tough game 6 loss.

Personally, the team meshed and played much better together than I thought they would. On paper, Mike Conley is past his prime and as of now Evan Turner and Keita Bates-Diop are only fringe starters depending on what team they are on.

However, behind the powerhouse that is LeBron James along with D’Angelo Russell having an amazing defensive year, they managed to make the playoffs.

The team played at a historically high pace as a result of them being such a small team. This is something that benefitted younger players like Russel and Bates-Diop who had countless fastbreak points between the two.

Also, with the high scoring team that the Buckeyes had, it hid Russell’s struggles of defending opposing shooting guards.

If this was a full roster simulation, I believe that it would have further hurt Ohio State’s alumni team. The chemistry that former Buckeyes have can not be accounted for, and just like this simulation when doubted with the odds against them, the Buckeyes always find a way to exceed expectations and achieve greatness.