The Ohio State basketball team opened up the new season against IU Indy after a long offseason. The Buckeyes were debuting quite a few new players from the Transfer Portal. It's a similar strategy that didn't work last year, as they collapsed down the stretch of the season.
Of course, the Ohio State Buckeyes still have some reliable players on the roster from a year ago. Bruce Thornton, Devin Royal, and John Mobley Jr. are all still on the roster, and they are all very good offensive players. Against IU Indy, all three of them scored in double figures.
Scoring a bunch of points was required to win this game because the Buckeyes' defense was nowhere to be found. Ohio State won the game 118-102 in what was an offensive explosion. It's clear that offense is going to be the only way the Buckeyes win games this year.
Strong offensive output will be the Ohio State basketball team's only option to win this year
Thornton had 26 points in this game, showing a true command of the offense. He wasn't the leading scorer in this game, though. Santa Clara transfer Christoph Tilly was, putting in 28 points on 9/11 shooting. He gave the Buckeyes a low-post presence that was lacking last season.
Defense is going to be a struggle with this team. They allowed the Jaguars to shoot 50 percent from the field. It seems that Jake Diebler has decided to make this team more of an offensive threat than one that shuts teams down defensively. Perhaps that's how he believes this team can win later in the year.
This game got closer than it should have at the end, so Diebler can't be pleased by that. Still, a win is a win, so the Buckeyes will build off this and continue to work on breaking the press and fouling less. Those things were struggles in this one.