Ohio State Basketball 2020 season preview

Ohio State basketball officially starts Wednesday. It’s time to look at how their season will go in very uncertain times.

Ohio State basketball plays their first game of the season Wednesday at 2 pm against Illinois State. They venture into a season that will be very uncertain because of the pandemic. Right now, the Buckeyes have a 25 game schedule. We’ll see if they end up playing all of those games.

In any case, the Buckeyes are ranked 23rd right now. They were a team that was playing as well as anyone in the country before the pandemic shut everything down. This year’s team is going to be a lot different from last year’s because of a number of transfers out of the program.

Gone are D.J. Carton, Luther Muhammad, Alonzo Gaffney, Kaleb Wesson, and Andre Wesson. Four of those players were starting-caliber guys. It’s going to be tough to replace them, especially the Wesson brothers. Kaleb was who the offense was run through last season and Andre was a great three-and-D guy.

C.J. Walker, E.J. Liddell, Duane Washington, and Kyle Young are the only guys who return who played major minutes from last season. Young seems to finally be healthy. Liddell showed strides of becoming a star at the end of last season and should be the focal point in the post.

Musa Jallow returning gives Ohio State some more athleticism in the backcourt. After missing all of last season with an ankle injury, he is finally back. He is someone who has the potential to get to the rim at will and use his athleticism to score easy buckets.

Transfers Justice Sueing and Seth Towns will be the players who decide how far this team goes. They are two wing guys who can put the ball in the hoop. Towns will be out until at least mid-December though, so it’s Sueing who will have to put the scoring load on his shoulders early.

Freshman Zed Key and Eugene Brown might also get some minutes. With so many transfers in and guys returning from last year, it might be hard for them to find minutes. They are guys that Chris Holtmann does like though and they both should have bright futures.

Looking at their schedule right now, they are a team that should make the NCAA Tournament again this year. With the Big Ten being the best conference in the country, they could finish around .500 in the conference and still be a 5-seed in the Tournament.

They are projected to finish 8th in the conference by the media. Assuming they do play all of their 25 games, I see this Ohio State basketball team finishing with an 18-7 record. That should be easily good enough to allow them to make the tournament.

Their journey starts tomorrow. We will be there every step of the way.