Ohio State basketball schedules a big neutral site game

The Ohio State basketball team usually plays a pretty tough non-conference schedule. Chris Holtmann likes to challenge his guys before Big Ten play starts so that they can be ready for one of the hardest conferences in the country year in and year out.

The Buckeyes announced today that they will play a neutral site game with West Virginia in Cleveland on December 30th this year. You may recall that the Buckeyes and Mountaineers played a neutral site game in the same place back in 2019 right before the pandemic started.

West Virginia ultimately won that game 67-59 because Ohio State couldn’t handle the full-court press. Nothing much has changed in that regard since. The Buckeyes still don’t handle the press well. We’ll see if that somehow changes before the matchup this year.

We don’t know any other matchup for the 2023-24 Ohio State basketball schedule yet. We know that they will play in the CBS Classic again this year, although the Big Ten/ACC challenge is over now that the TV contracts have changed for the upcoming year.

This is a big season for the basketball program. Chris Holtmann is clearly on the hot seat after a terrible 2022-23 season which saw the Buckeyes finish under .500 for the first time in 25 years. Holtmann needs a bounce-back season with a strong recruiting class coming in.

A win over West Virginia in Cleveland would be a good resume-builder for a squad trying to make it back to the NCAA Tournament. The Mountaineers are pretty good almost every year. A win right before Big Ten play starts would also be a confidence boost for a young team.

We have a long way to go before the next season starts. Hopefully, it starts and ends better than the last one did.