Ohio State basketball: Bench points will be critical

The Ohio State basketball team is still trying to figure out the starting lineup for this year. I gave my best guess as to who the starting lineup could feature already. But the bench will also play a very important role. The Buckeyes need points from their bench.

Ohio State is going to need guys to step up and score when the starters are struggling. They need guys like Eugene Brown to take the next step in their development. Brown is a guy who started for long stretches of last season but couldn’t shoot well at all.

Brown has a good-looking shooting stroke, he just needs to take that next step to knock down threes with some consistency. His defense needs work too, but we’re just talking about offense from the bench at this point. The Buckeyes are trying to replace a lot of offensive production from last year.

The freshman class is also going to need to step up and do things off the bench. Ohio State will have five talented freshmen coming in this year. They all are capable scorers, or at least they were in high school. There’s a chance they all end up coming off the bench.

A player that was crucial off the bench last year was Kyle Young. He gave the Buckeyes a great punch both offensively and defensively. He’s gone now. The Ohio State basketball team needs someone like that that they can count on off the bench.

It may be a few games before they are able to figure out the rotation and what works best. I would hope that by the time Big Ten play starts that they have things figured out.