Three bold predictions for the 2022-23 Ohio State basketball team

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We might be right in the thick of football season, but the Ohio State basketball season starts on Monday. It will start when the Buckeyes take on Robert Morris in what will be many people’s first look at this new team. This team has a lot of new faces on it.

Gone are E.J. Liddell, Malaki Branham, and Kyle Young. In are five new freshmen and three transfers. Only Zed Key, Justice Sueing, and Eugene Brown remain from a year ago in terms of players who played real minutes. It’s going to be a big transition.

Chris Holtmann faced a lot of criticism at the end of last year including from me. He has yet to advance past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament or win a Big Ten regular-season or tournament championship. It’s been five years now and this is year six. Something has to change.

Before the season starts, I have three bold predictions for how this season will turn out. I do really like some players on this team and I think the roster has some potential. How they are coached will make all the difference in whether this ends up being a successful season or not.

The first bold prediction has to deal with how the Buckeyes will handle the non-conference schedule.

The Ohio State basketball team has a tough non-conference schedule this year. Mandatory Credit: Joseph Scheller-The Columbus DispatchBasketball Ceb Mbk Chaminade Chaminade At Ohio State /

1. The Ohio State basketball team struggles in the non-conference part of the schedule.

This is not all their fault because the non-conference schedule is pretty hard for any team, let alone a young team with a lot of new faces on it. The Buckeyes play Duke, North Carolina, and San Diego State. That doesn’t include the other Maui Invitational participants either.

After the Buckeyes play SDSU, they could play Arizona, Texas Tech, Arkansas, or another one of the great teams in Maui. That’s a tough slate of teams to deal with no matter how old the team is. Taking into account that this team is made up of mostly new guys makes it even harder.

I think the Buckeyes very well could lose all three of those marquee games. In fact, I think they will. They also could lose at least one more game in Maui. This team just won’t have enough time to gell and find out who the go-to scorers on this team are before heading there.

The second prediction I have talks about how they will do in Big Ten play.

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