Ohio State basketball team needs to run more plays

The Ohio State basketball team is in play-for-pride mode at this point in the season. They are 11-14 and won’t be playing in the postseason. Part of the reason why they have been so bad this season is a terrible stretch of offensive basketball.

The Buckeyes scored just 14 points in the first half against Michigan State over the weekend and managed just 42 overall. It doesn’t matter what team you are playing, 42 points are not going to get it done. It’s extremely disappointing to see that happening for the last two months.

A potential solution to the offensive woes is running more sets in the half-court. Chris Holtmann has said that he doesn’t like running plays very much. Clearly, that hasn’t worked since Big Ten play started. Running more plays might get them some easier buckets.

Running more plays will also help the team move the ball better. Ohio State had just five assists in the last game against Michigan State. The lack of ball-sharing is glaring and clearly a reason why they can’t score more points. They need to do more drive-and-kick to help get some open shots.

More than that, they have to run more plays to get layups and shots at the rim. Those shots are more prone to go in and help get your confidence up. This team lacks confidence, any kind of confidence. Once they start missing shots, the defense starts to suffer too.

Fixing this at this point in the season is just helping the team get better for next year. Nothing can be salvaged this season. It’d be nice to see some improvement with this team over the final month of the year. It would make the Ohio State basketball fans feel better about the state of the program.