Ohio State basketball: Can Buckeyes bounce back vs. Maryland?

The Ohio State basketball team lost a heartbreaker to Purdue last weekend. Can they bounce back tomorrow against Maryland?

The Ohio State basketball team hasn’t played a game in a week. They had yet another game postponed this season, this time not being able to face Iowa because of the huge winter storm. Now, they take on Maryland tomorrow after a week off.

Here’s hoping that the Buckeyes used the rest wisely because it’s the last bit of rest that they’re going to get. Thanks to the rash of postponements, they will have a grueling schedule in the month of February. They will play three games next week alone.

Maryland is not the strongest opponent in the world. They are 11-11 and are only 3-5 in Big Ten play. To be frank, they’re just not very good. This is a game that Ohio State needs to win. After losing a brutal one at Purdue last Sunday, they should be focused and ready to go.

I’m interested to see what Chris Holtmann does with the starting lineup. Justin Ahrens was finally relegated to the bench last game. In his first game coming off the bench all year, he was just 1/4 for 3 points. In fact, he only played 11 minutes in the game.

Meechie Johnson was the one who jumped into the starting lineup in that one. I would expect him to stay as a starter on Sunday. Perhaps he goes with Eugene Brown instead. All I know is that Ahrens’ days of starting should be over this season.

This might be the type of game you can play him a lot of minutes late though to see if he can break out of that shooting slump. I expect Ohio State to put Maryland away midway through the second half and not have any stress down the stretch in this game.

I predict that the Buckeyes win this game 80-64. If it’s not a blowout, there’s a problem.