Ohio State Basketball: Keys to a Buckeyes win over Wisconsin

The 2023 Big Ten Tournament finally gets underway tonight in Chicago. The Ohio State basketball team will play the Wisconsin Badgers in the first game of the tournament which takes place at the well-known United Center.

Ohio State comes into tonight’s matchup coming off of their regular season finale at Michigan State in which they fell to the Spartans, 78-84. The loss comes after the Buckeyes won back-to-back games for the first time since late December.

It is hard to believe that Ohio State was inside the top-25 just over two months ago, but here we are. From what looked like to be a promising season at first, the Buckeyes are just hoping to find some success in the Big Ten Tournament and take some momentum into next season.

In order for that success to happen, Ohio State will have a nice first-round test against Wisconsin which comes into the game at 17-13 on the season, while the Buckeyes are 13-18.

Despite the Buckeyes’ record looking significantly worse, they actually do have a very good chance of keeping it close, and even possibly pulling out the win.

Brice Sensabaugh just needs to be himself 

The first big key for the Buckeyes tonight is rookie sensation Brice Sensabaugh. He was the reason why the Ohio State season had hope to begin with, but unfortunately, growing pains still happened with the freshman.

But now that he seems back to his old self, the Buckeyes also seem to be back to their old selves before the mid-season collapse happened. Along with Sensabaugh being back to scoring like he was early on, he has also improved his passing and it’s quite noticeable in the past few weeks. If Sensabaugh gets going early on, watch out for this offense.

Other guys need to step up

A big concern for the Ohio State basketball team at times this season is that besides Sensabaugh, no one has really been able to be that main number two option and it has hurt the Buckeyes. But one guy to watch out for tonight is Bruce Thornton.

Ever since the Michigan game on February 5, Thornton has had just two games out of nine in which he has not hit double digits in a game. Before the February 5 matchup in which Thornton had a season-high 22 points, he had been unable to score efficiently.

Like Thornton, it would be very helpful if they can get other guys like Justice Sueing, Felix Okpara, Isaac Likekele, and Sean McNeil to step up.

Desperation factor

Another big key in this one is that both teams will be very desperate for a win, so Ohio State better bring their A game from the start. Wisconsin is very similar to Ohio State in that they have been struggling since January. The Badgers have the better record overall and in the conference, so a hot desperate start is needed from the Buckeyes.

Limiting Wisconsin 

The last big key to beating Wisconsin tonight is limiting the Badgers’ best players to what they can do. It all has to start with the forwards Steven Crowl and Tyler Wahl.

Ever since Ohio State lost Zed Key the first time back in January, it just has not been the same inside the paint without him. The Buckeyes are clearly missing his presence on both sides of the ball. Finding help to guard the two big men can come a long way as Ohio State can then focus on guard Chucky Hepburn.

If the Buckeyes are able to limit these Wisconsin stars, it could help lead them to completing step one of a very tall task. Although winning five games in five days seems nearly impossible for the Ohio State basketball team, it would all start tonight at 6:30 pm on Big Ten Network