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BONUS: Ohio State Basketball Releases Full 2026-27 Schedule · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: All right, we are back with another bonus show, and
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  Speaker 1: we are talking Ohio State basketball once again. Buckeyes got
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  Speaker 1: a commitment from a top 50 recruit earlier in the week,
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  Speaker 1: and now we're going to be talking a little bit
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  Speaker 1: about the Ohio State basketball schedule, which also came out
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  Speaker 1: this week. A surprising amount of basketball news during a
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  Speaker 1: time which is normally sort of a quiet period of
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  Speaker 1: time in the Ohio State basketball calendar, but business is
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  Speaker 1: picking up for Jake Diebler and the Ohio State basketball team,
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  Speaker 1: and so we're going to bring in our buddy Marcus Hartman,
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  Speaker 1: the basketball insider at BuckeyeInsiders.com. talk about the Ohio State
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  Speaker 1: basketball schedule for the men. Maybe talk a little bit
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  Speaker 1: about the women as well. But Marcus, we have done,
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  Speaker 1: should have taken an early look at this schedule because
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  Speaker 1: we knew, okay, here's who's coming, who they're playing on
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  Speaker 1: the road. Here's who they're playing at home. And we
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  Speaker 1: kind of looked at it and thought, hmm, that road
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  Speaker 1: schedule is going to be mighty challenging. And then when
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  Speaker 1: you see it all laid out in terms of who
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  Speaker 1: they're playing, when and where, it feels like they should
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  Speaker 1: win a whole lot of home games this year. And
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  Speaker 1: then There are going to be a whole lot of
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  Speaker 1: challenging road games for this team.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, for sure.
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  Speaker 1: Interesting.
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  Speaker 2: Based on some of the early projections, let me see
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  Speaker 2: where I lost the number all of a sudden. I
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  Speaker 2: don't want to say that wrong. It's like three teams
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  Speaker 2: at home and six or seven on the road or
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  Speaker 2: even more than that. Early on, it is softer. January
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  Speaker 2: and February, it gets a little rougher, it looks like.
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  Speaker 2: So the first Big Ten game will be at Nebraska, who,
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  Speaker 2: you know, they were good last year. They're expecting to
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  Speaker 2: be good again this year. And they come home to
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  Speaker 2: play Maryland, who is still down, not necessarily. People are
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  Speaker 2: not looking for big things from them. Then they go
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  Speaker 2: to Notre Dame, who lost a lot in the transfer portal.
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  Speaker 2: So that would be a game. I think that for
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  Speaker 2: a road game or conference team, that's got to be
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  Speaker 2: one that you feel like, you know, if you're going
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  Speaker 2: to be an NCAA tournament team, you've got a good
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  Speaker 2: shot at winning. Definitely should be a competitive game. And
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  Speaker 2: then they'll have the, after a home game against Stony Brook,
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  Speaker 2: they've got a game at the Madison Square Garden on
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  Speaker 2: December 19th against Kansas, who, if you may have guessed,
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  Speaker 2: has some top 10 recruits coming in and is expected
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  Speaker 2: to be really good at basketball. So that'll be a
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  Speaker 2: tough one. They'll come back home to finish out December
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  Speaker 2: against Mississippi Valley State and Oregon. Oregon, not a team
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  Speaker 2: that's expected to be near the top of the Big Ten.
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  Speaker 2: And then they win Iowa. January 2nd, that is never
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  Speaker 2: an easy place to play. They get Northwestern at home
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  Speaker 2: four days later. So you think they've got a good
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  Speaker 2: shot to have a pretty strong start to the season.
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  Speaker 2: Then they have to go to Illinois and Purdue, which
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  Speaker 2: those are both, I would imagine, are going to expect
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  Speaker 2: to be tough games. They get Penn State, a three-game homestand.
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  Speaker 2: Penn State, Michigan State, and Iowa, January 17th through the 26th.
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  Speaker 2: That would be a chance, again, Michigan State, I think,
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  Speaker 2: is going to be probably a top-ten team. You expect
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  Speaker 2: Iowa is usually there, kind of on the come-up with
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  Speaker 2: Ben McCollum after making, I believe they made the Elite
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  Speaker 2: Eight last year, at least this week. So that will
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  Speaker 2: not be a gimme game, but it would be one,
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  Speaker 2: if you can win at least two out of those three.
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  Speaker 2: Then they finish January at Michigan. They go to Penn State.
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  Speaker 2: They get Wisconsin and Washington at home. Those would both
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  Speaker 2: be games you think they can win. And then the
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  Speaker 2: West Coast trip at UCLA, at USC, February 17th and 11th.
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  Speaker 2: Then they come home for a layup against Rutgers. And
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  Speaker 2: then they go to Indiana and Minnesota. Michigan would be
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  Speaker 2: the home finale on March 7th. So I would say this.
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  Speaker 2: I think the way things are projected now, and you
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  Speaker 2: never know how to.
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  Speaker 2: I think everything is fairly spread out. I mean, like
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  Speaker 2: you say, and as we had said before, the majority
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  Speaker 2: of the tough games are on the road, but I'm
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  Speaker 2: not sure that it looks like they've got a real
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  Speaker 2: murderous stretch where you just say, oh man, there's five
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  Speaker 2: games in there where it's going to be tough to
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  Speaker 2: win more than one of those just because of where
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  Speaker 2: they fall. So for better or for worse, you know,
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  Speaker 2: we've seen this team over the years kind of have
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  Speaker 2: it be a little bit streaky. Maybe they at least schedule,
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  Speaker 2: the way the schedule lays out, they don't have to
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  Speaker 2: worry about that kind of thing, as long as they're
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  Speaker 2: taking care of business.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and with as, you know, you're going to get
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  Speaker 1: certain teams at the very top of the league are
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  Speaker 1: going to be quad one games, no matter what, Q1 games,
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  Speaker 1: home or road. But there are going to be teams
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  Speaker 1: that if they're just kind of okay, if Minnesota can
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  Speaker 1: be okay this year and you can beat them on
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  Speaker 1: the road, if Indiana can be okay this year and
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  Speaker 1: you can beat them on the road, you know, those
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  Speaker 1: are games where You can sort of steal a quad
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  Speaker 1: one win where it has to be a top 20
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  Speaker 1: or 25 team at home. But if you play them
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  Speaker 1: on the road, it can be like a top 40 team.
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  Speaker 1: So you can sort of steal some NCAA tournament selection
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  Speaker 1: committee valor there if you can just get a couple
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  Speaker 1: of those. But it's manageable and you got to win
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  Speaker 1: your gimmies. You got to win. They lost a couple
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  Speaker 1: of years ago. They lost one at the buzzer to Oregon.
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  Speaker 1: And you can't do that this year. You got to
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  Speaker 1: And that was a year when they missed the tournament
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  Speaker 1: probably by one game or two games. You got to
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  Speaker 1: kind of handle your business at home. But it is
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  Speaker 1: a manageable schedule at home. And if you're looking at
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  Speaker 1: this from the perspective of you would assume this is probably,
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  Speaker 1: and you can let me know if I'm off base here,
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  Speaker 1: but my assumption is this is a team that should
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  Speaker 1: be a top third of the Big Ten kind of
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  Speaker 1: team at least and should be be comfortably in the
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  Speaker 1: tournament field, not, you know, sitting nervously in the bubble on,
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  Speaker 1: on selection Sunday. Is it better to have these challenging
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  Speaker 1: games on the road and maybe you can steal one
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  Speaker 1: and then, you know, you're going to pile up an
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  Speaker 1: impressive record at home or would you rather have it
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  Speaker 1: the other way around?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think especially since you have almost no home
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  Speaker 2: court advantage with the Schottenstein Center, it probably is better
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  Speaker 2: to just go ahead and play those games on the road.
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  Speaker 2: Some teams get energy from playing on the road, too.
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  Speaker 2: And what you're talking about, I think also Nebraska and
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  Speaker 2: Iowa probably will be more valuable road wins than they
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  Speaker 2: would be at home, those kinds of games. Maybe they'll
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  Speaker 2: be better than that, but it's more likely they will
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  Speaker 2: probably be on the same level as Ohio State. I
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  Speaker 2: think that if you look at where they ought to be,
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  Speaker 2: if they can split against uh you know in their
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  Speaker 2: game against the top five in the big 10 and
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  Speaker 2: win pretty much all the rest of them they'll have
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  Speaker 2: a pretty good season um it'd be a little harder
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  Speaker 2: to do that if a majority of but that's still
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  Speaker 2: very doable i mean i i don't think raw talent
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  Speaker 2: and size are going to be a problem um as
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  Speaker 2: much as they have been in the past few years
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  Speaker 2: uh if that's something they'll be kind of young but
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  Speaker 2: um i think that's half the battle if you look
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  Speaker 2: at it just they were so obviously Almost every ranked
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  Speaker 2: team they would play last year, they were much smaller than.
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  Speaker 2: And really, I think just a raw talents team, especially
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  Speaker 2: when you look at that they got nothing. I think
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  Speaker 2: this would be a team that's got good depth. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: not absolutely elite talent, but some pretty good talent. And
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  Speaker 2: they should be able to go out there and play
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  Speaker 2: with anybody on a nightly basis.
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  Speaker 1: And then let's real quickly hit on the women's team
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  Speaker 1: as well, because they're playing in what should be a
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  Speaker 1: pretty talented Big Ten this year. I'm going to just
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  Speaker 1: pull from the Hoops HQ list. preseason rankings. Just sort
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  Speaker 1: of scrolling through right now, USC, preseason number four. Michigan,
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  Speaker 1: preseason number five. Iowa, preseason number eight. UCLA, preseason number 11. Washington,
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  Speaker 1: preseason number 17. Minnesota, preseason number 18. The Buckeyes, preseason
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  Speaker 1: number 20. Maryland, number 21. Illinois, number 22. Nebraska, number 24.
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  Speaker 1: That's a lot of Big Ten teams Looking through that
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  Speaker 1: schedule right now, they've got to go to Michigan. They
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  Speaker 1: have to go to UCLA. They have to go to USC.
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  Speaker 1: They have a pretty difficult schedule there as well because
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  Speaker 1: you're going to Nebraska, to Maryland. These are all ranked teams.
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  Speaker 1: They have another one where it feels like a lot
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  Speaker 1: of the most challenging games are on the road for
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  Speaker 1: Kevin McGuff and his team.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I mean, they will, and they
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  Speaker 2: play UConn early on. So, I mean, there's no doubt
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  Speaker 2: that it's going to be a challenging schedule. And yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that West Coast trip will be interesting. You figure UCLA
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  Speaker 2: will be, you know, they lost, I think their top
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  Speaker 2: six or seven players were all seniors, mostly fifth year seniors.
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  Speaker 2: So they will be rebuilt, but that's not a difficult
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  Speaker 2: thing to do these days when you're the opening national team.
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  Speaker 2: I believe Juju Watkins will be back for USC. So
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  Speaker 2: that will be another. And they had, I can't remember,
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  Speaker 2: they had another star freshman last year. As I recall,
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  Speaker 2: Iowa is a big-time rival. They've got a good rivalry
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  Speaker 2: kind of going with Maryland since they're good. The depth
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  Speaker 2: of the Big Ten is just so much stronger than
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  Speaker 2: it was. It's a lot more competitive than it used
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  Speaker 2: to be 10 or 15 years ago. So you don't
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  Speaker 2: expect it to be easy by any stretch of the imagination.
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  Speaker 2: But I am bullish on this team in terms of
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  Speaker 2: they bring back just about everybody of consequence except Chance Ray. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know... they've got some, some bigs who were just
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  Speaker 2: second year players last year. If they can kind of
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  Speaker 2: physically mature and continue to grow their games, Jelani Cambridge
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  Speaker 2: is really a unique talent, ability to play point guard
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  Speaker 2: and score and involve everybody else and play defense. You know,
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  Speaker 2: I think they've got a lot of intriguing parts there
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  Speaker 2: and some continuity. So we'll see how it all shakes out,
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  Speaker 2: but we with this schedule.
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  Speaker 1: All right. So there you go. A little basketball talk
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  Speaker 1: for you. Second bonus basketball show this week. How about that?
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: And we've had, Plenty more bonus shows for you. You
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  Speaker 1: got to hear from Ohio State head coach Ryan Day,
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  Speaker 1: some of the interesting stuff he had to say at
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: his press conference this week. We've had a bunch of
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: scheme coverage for you this week with Michael Pettit, Ross Fulton,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: breaking down some of the X's and O's from the
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Buckeyes loss at Texas and what it all means and
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: where they go from here we've had the usual nonsense
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: as well tony girderman and i with our our bold
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: prediction show you want to get smarter we have that
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: content you want to get dumber we have the bold
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: predictions content we've got whatever you want on the buckeyeinsiders.com
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: site on the buckeyeinsiders.com message board and on our YouTube
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: channel as well, youtube.com slash at Buckeye Insiders. We would
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: love to see you in all of those places. That'll
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: do it for now. Thank you guys for joining us.
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  Speaker 1: We'll be back with more content soon.