Ohio State basketball: Start of season now uncertain

The Ohio State basketball program was expected to start their season on November 25th in a tournament set in South Dakota. That is no longer the case.

Ohio State basketball was supposed to start November 25th against Memphis. The tournament they were originally in, the Battle 4 Atlantis, was moved to Sioux Fall, South Dakota. The Buckeyes will no longer be participating in that tournament as they have pulled out.

The Buckeyes have decided to pull out of that tournament due to the large amount of COVID-19 cases in South Dakota. They are part of a travel advisory list that would force them to quarantine for 14 days upon returning from the tournament.

It is now unclear as to when the Ohio State basketball season will start. Their next game isn’t scheduled until December 2nd against Morehead State Challenge. We will see if the Buckeyes try to schedule someone else before that game. Otherwise, their season would start a week later.

The entire schedule for Ohio State is unclear right now. They only have four games scheduled at all, all non-conference games. The Big Ten schedule still hasn’t been released. I would expect that to happen sometime soon, considering the final game on Ohio State’s schedule right now is December 19th.

The Buckeyes did get some good news today though. Jimmy Sotos, the transfer from Bucknell, has been granted eligibility for this season after an appeal. He will give Chris Holtmann’s squad a ball-handler off the bench, which is desperately needed after Abel Porter’s diagnosis.

It will be interesting to see how no longer playing in this early-season tournament affects Ohio State’s NCAA Tourney chances. This is a team that is expected to be a preseason top-15 squad. There are high hopes for this team after how well they finished at the end of last year.

We will let you know of any updates in the schedule as they become available.