Ohio State basketball vs. Illinois State: Postgame grades

The Ohio State basketball team dominated in their first game of the season, beating Illinois State by a score of 94-67. Here is how each player did in today’s game.

Ohio State basketball is back and looks formidable. Even though they played a bad team in Illinois State, they still looked good in their 94-67 victory. This is almost a brand new team and there were questions about them entering this season.

The Buckeyes started out on a 22-0 run and then kind of coasted after that. Chris Holtmann will certainly expect his team to play hard throughout the game and I’m sure this will be addressed.

A lot of Buckeyes looked good in this one. It was an encouraging first game even if the opponent wasn’t of high quality. There were some first-game jitters for sure, but those will get cleaned up. This is how every player performed in today’s opening-season win.

Liddell was the focal point of the offense early on as we expected. He didn’t disappoint. He had the first points in this game and finished with 16 on 5-9 shooting while adding 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and a block. It was an all-around great game for Liddell.

Justice Sueing showed us that he might be the best player the Buckeyes have. He was unconscious in this one, going 8-9 from the field. He had a game-high 19 points, 8 rebounds, and an assist. Sueing had several great moves to finish inside and can finish through contact. He is an outstanding offensive player.

Kyle Young was out there doing Kyle Young things. He had 8 points on 3-5 shooting to go along with 8 rebounds. He also played great defense and drew a charge. Young did take a hard fall on an alley-oop, but got up and walked it off which was good to see.

C.J. Walker was a steady hand in this one. He had a game-high 6 assists to go along with his 10 points. He was only 3-8 shooting though and missed both three-point attempts he had. Walker is still the best ballhandler the Buckeyes have.

Duane Washington was not good in this one at all. He took bad shots and didn’t make many. He was an abysmal 4-12 from the field while going a respectable 2-5 from deep. 12 points isn’t bad, but he forced the issue way too much when there are other scorers available on this team.