Ohio State basketball: Non-conference schedule is robust

The Ohio State basketball team released their non-conference schedule today and it is fairly robust.

The Ohio State basketball team has released its non-conference schedule. We knew some of the opponents that they were playing already but we didn’t know the dates. We do know now when most of those dates are as well all of the opponents.

Some of the teams that they play are pretty strong. The Buckeyes play Duke, Kentucky, Xavier, and two of either Cal, Florida, or Seton Hall. That’s a pretty robust non-conference schedule. Those are all teams that are perennially fighting for spots in the NCAA Tournament.

This is a tougher non-conference schedule than the Buckeyes normally play also. They normally play a softer schedule because of how hard the Big Ten Conference is. They don’t want to pile on too many losses before they play Big Ten teams because then it hurts their NCAA Tournament chances.

Obviously, the headliner on this list is the Duke game. It is the last season for Coach K and Chris Holtmann would like nothing better than for Coach K to lose his final game ever coaching against the Buckeyes. That game will also be at the Schott, so the crowd should be pretty intense.

We won’t know about the Big Ten schedule for a little while now. That schedule will be much harder than this non-conference one, even though this schedule is nothing to sneeze at. The Buckeyes will need to rack up as many wins as they can before that.

Ohio State also plays three in-state teams as well. They host Bowling Green and Akron before their trip to Xavier. I think it’s good that they get to play so many in-state teams. I think it’s good for basketball in the state of Ohio.

The roster can still change before the start of the season. I can’t wait to see what Holtmann can do in the transfer portal. It’d be great if he could pull out a great player. If you want to see the full non-con schedule, here it is.