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BONUS: Ohio State Basketball - The Good, The Bad, The Meaningless · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All right, time for another bonus show, and we're going
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to make a little bit of a left turn here. Yes,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: it is the middle of football season, but also this week,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the Ohio State men's basketball team took to the court
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: against the Cincinnati Bearcats for an exhibition opener. A little
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: bit of a different twist. They did it outside. You
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: can welcome in Marcus Hartman, the basketball insider from BuckeyeInsiders.com. Marcus,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: before we get started, the theme of today's show is
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: going to be one good thing for Ohio State that
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: we took away from that, one bad thing, and one
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: thing that we looked at and went, well, that doesn't
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: matter at all, or I'm not going to take anything
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: out of that at all. But before we get into that,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I did want to just kind of talk about the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: event itself. It was a four-team doubleheader between Ohio State
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and Cincinnati and then Xavier and Dayton. They did it
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: down in the Lindner Family Tennis Center down in Mason,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: which is where they hold the Cincinnati Open every year.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: It was a perfect day weather-wise, but just the event itself,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I walked out of there and thought, this is something
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: they should do all the time.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. It was cool. And I figured it
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: would be. It's a really nice facility. I hadn't been
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: there in a while and it was already nice and
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: they made it even nicer with some of that stuff
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: that we were in was new, I believe. And good
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: fan bases for the travel and to show up for
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: that kind of a thing. And they had the food
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: trucks and everything. So it was a nice outing from
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: that standpoint just all the way around and it was
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: really I mean it looked it couldn't have looked any
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: like more professional setup wise and everything like that too
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: so yeah it was it was really good all around
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: the visuals were great and you know make it over
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: to the site and check out the photo gallery if
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: you haven't seen it already with the just it was
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: it was a perfect weather in terms of I mean
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: there was it might have been a tad bit of
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: a breeze but It was warm, but not too hot.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, once you got out there running around, I'm
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: sure it was plenty warm. But in general, it wasn't hot.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: And it was sunny, but not necessarily blinding. It was
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: about the best you could ask for.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was sunny down on the court, and
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: it was breezy down on the court. I feel like
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that you sort of saw reflected in some of the
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: shooting from distance records from the game. I think Ohio
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: State shot 17% from behind the arc, and I was
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: down on the floor at the end of the Cincinnati
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: bench and heard their coach tell their players, basically, stop
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: shooting from outside. You got to get closer because it's
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: hard to adjust for the wind, I think, basically. And
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I texted you eight minutes into the game, not eight
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: o'clock minutes, eight minutes after the official tip-off time and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: just said, I just want to go on the record
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: with the fact that I'm taking absolutely nothing out of
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: this game because of the sun and wind. So this
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: is one of these things where You're not, you know,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: this is not the conditions you're going to be playing
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: in all season. And also it's October 7th. So, you know,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the start of the season is still almost a month away.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: And you're not really, you know, winning is obviously not
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the primary goal of this game. So all that said,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: what was one thing that you looked at from this
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: game and thought, this is a positive sign for this
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: year's Ohio State basketball team?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the best thing that you could see
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: was Justin Pippen's perimeter defense was very evident. And not
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: just him, they had other guys, but they would pick
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: up the ball handler on the inbound most of the
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: time and just kind of make them work to get
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: it up the floor. And honestly, I mean, maybe there's
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a memory bias here, but he
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: really did look kind of, he's not as tall, but
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: he really did look kind of like his dad, just
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: with the stance that he was in and the way
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: he had his hands out, kind of, You know, just
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: sort of enveloping the ball handler, but in a legal
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: kind of a way, and he's got those long arms,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: and he's kind of angular, built like his dad, you know.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Just in terms of, I mean, that could be a
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: huge difference maker in making the other team's point guard
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: have to work all game and have to deal with that.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, that was the best thing that came out
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: of it from my standpoint. And I guess another good thing,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: some of the young guys, they looked aggressive and they
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: were trying to make plays. Those would be kind of
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: the main things. And so we'll see what that gets
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: extrapolated forward, but that was my number one positive.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: On the negative side, yeah, they lost. They were ahead
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: at halftime. I do feel like there was a little
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: bit of an advantage to shooting on one end of
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: the court versus the other because Ohio State won the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: first half when they were shooting on the left basket
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: from the camera side. And then Cincinnati won the second
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: half when they were shooting on the left basket from
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the camera side. The right side was where you were
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: sort of dealing with the sun a little bit. And
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I think the wind might have been a little bit
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: more of a factor down that end. So again, nothing
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: you're going to be dealing with during the regular season.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and for whatever an exhibition loss is worth, which did
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: not show up on the quad one rankings as far
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: as I've seen yet, so probably nothing. But what was
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: something that you walked away and thought, hmm, I don't
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: know if this was a good sign or not. This
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: may not have been a good sign for the Ohio
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: State basketball program.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, and Jake Dealer was in a great
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: mood afterwards, so he didn't seem bothered by anything. But
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, I do feel like, yeah, if you're going
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: to throw out the shooting, that's fine. But, you know,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: they sort of got beat on all the on the
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: hustle stats and rebounding and their defense left a lot
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: to be desired. Uh, once, uh, Cincinnati stopped taking jump shots. So,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, I, I don't know how, again, it's October 7th,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: but aside from that, I mean, if you're going to
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: take anything away, I'm not sure how you could come away.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Not a little bit concerned about that, that this, um,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: needs to be a team who can, who can stand
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: up to other teams when they get physical and are gritty.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: And Diebler himself did say, yeah, the big guys really
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: didn't play well. I mean, that just wasn't a good
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: day for them. And they'll look better in other days.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I guess we'll have to just wait
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: and see. I do believe he said, you know, we
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: shoot the ball a lot better than that in practice.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: And I tend to believe that's probably true. Because we
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: know Mobley can shoot. We've been told LJ Smith can shoot.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: I think they'll be fine shooting and putting the ball
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: in the basket. But, you know, they haven't. Last year
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: they were a below average defensive team and they couldn't rebound.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: And obviously that's something that you've got to watch out
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: for coming into this year, even if they do have more.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think they certainly are more athletic. They're
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: longer and taller at least. But there's still, you know,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: some physical aspects that you kind of have to wonder
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: about until you see.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the frontcourt was certainly a question to me. Ivan
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Ngovin started the game and I think only played eight minutes,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and after the game sounded like Diebler felt like it
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: was more of a performance thing rather than a, you know,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: he was hurt or twisted his ankle or whatever. So,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: you know, that's a little bit of a question because
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: it feels like he's someone that they're planning on leaning
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: on a little bit. Joshua Johnwuna, who was the guy
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: who transferred from Baylor last season and then missed the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: whole year with a knee injury. He was back. He
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: was healthy. But he picked up three early fouls. And,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. Players picking up fouls, about
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: midway through the second half, there were 40 fouls. There
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: had been 40 fouls called. So, you know, I don't
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: know how much to take from that. It was, you know,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: it was obviously it was October 7th. So it was
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a sloppy game. And no one's
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: in exactly midseason form. It did feel like a little
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: bit of a whistle-happy ref crew.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: To me at times.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: And that was just, you know, that was not, oh,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: it was all in Ohio State. It was no, both
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: teams were in the double bonus at about the five
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: minute mark of the first half. So that was probably
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a little aggressive in terms of the whistles.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Well, Ohio State was in the bonus like a minute
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: into the second half, literally. And like they were in
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: the double bonus for almost the entire second half and
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: they didn't shoot free throws well at all. So I mean,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: the In the second half, they called, especially in the
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: first 10 minutes of the second half, UC, they called
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: a bunch of fouls on UC. They definitely were calling
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: it pretty tight for any type of a game, and
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: certainly for that type of a game, and it was,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: I would say, even both ways. I think Josh, there
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: were a couple times we got the ball, and he
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: did look a little bit like a baby bird who
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: was still learning to fly, and he told Zeebler after
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the game that He had some nerves going on, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: so you can write that off, I think. He looked
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: good physically. He was moving very well, looked quick and
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: strong and everything, but especially if the ball was in
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: his hands, he looked a little bit out of sorts.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: That's definitely something if you're going to say, well, that
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: should go away. I think that is easy to go away.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: And then Djokovic, you know, you have to worry.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Basically he did say he pretty much got benched and
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: that's a guy that was kind of at the beginning
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: of the summer. It was like, well, yeah, this guy's
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: going to play a big role. And everybody was kind
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: of like, really? Cause we didn't see much from him
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: last year. So you have to wonder about that. I mean,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I think he's going to be the starter. It looks like,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: but that doesn't mean he's going to play 35 minutes
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: a game, but you know, they, they obviously need, they
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: don't need any of the big guys to be great,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: but they need, at least replacement level from those guys.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: And then I think, you know, maybe they can out
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: beat some teams at the other positions, but you don't
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: want that to be a liability. That's for sure.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And I feel like we've talked about about five different
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: things that we kind of went, well, that doesn't matter
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: at all. But was there anything else that we haven't
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: touched on yet that you thought that about? And if not,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: did this change your opinion on anything, like materially move
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the needle for you on anything around this team or
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: not really?
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Um, I mean, um, not really. I mean, I posted
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: this on, I think on the board and on Twitter,
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: like this actually did look like a vintage, like Bob Huggins,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Cincinnati team, and they were physical and aggressive and they
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: were definitely very into it in the second half as
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: they were making their comeback. And, um, so yeah, I mean,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: I think Ohio state is going to be more of
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: a finesse skill team, but they, again, there's gotta be
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: some level of physicality and, um, and, and just in
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: general fundamentals, I think you, you kind of worry about
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: the rebounding. Sometimes it does look like they literally don't
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: know how to get a rebound. So, I mean, but
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: that is at least a bit of a learned skill
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: for some of those guys. And Lee Ayala did not play. So,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, he may be the, who knows, he may
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: be their most talented big guy, especially from an age standpoint.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's a guy who's going to be 22
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: in November. He's played, um, a lot of ball overseas,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: including he was part of like playing real minutes for the, uh,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: um argentinian us or the argentinian senior national team like
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: he's not just in the like 18 under team which
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: is not taking him away from that but a lot
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: of players make those and it's it's a very select
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: group no matter what country you're talking about that makes
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: the senior team If he's on there, he's got to
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: be doing something. Maybe he'll be the guy that pushes
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: them over the top, but we've got to see him
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: in action first. Like I said, it dampened a little
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: bit of the enthusiasm, but only from a matter of
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: if you were very enthusiastic, which I was flirting with
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: being fairly enthusiastic about them. But it is what it is.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: They could come out and be 15-0 in January and
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: then fall off a cliff. Who knows? We've seen things
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: like that happen before. So you don't want to get
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: too high and too low on anything that happens as
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: long as they're on track to, you know, be in
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: the top third of the big 10 and, and get
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: a solid seed in the NCAA tournament. The rest of
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: it's kind of gravy as the way college basketball is
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: say that set out now.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like that seems like a perfectly reasonable expectation,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: top third or so of the big 10 and get
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: a better seed than you had last year in the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: NCAA tournament, you know, get a five or a six
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: or something like that, as opposed to eight last year. So,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: If you're just a little bit better, another step forward,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: win a game or two in the NCAA tournament, that
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: feels like that would be a perfectly reasonable expectation for
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the season and a perfectly successful season as well. So
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: next time the Buckeyes will be back on the court
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: is October 25th. That is Sunday. That's an exhibition game
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: at the Shot against Butler. 2 p.m. tip on that one.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Regular season starts Monday, November 2nd out in Salt Lake
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: City as they play a neutral site. And I'm doing
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: some heavy air quotes there on neutral site against BYU
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: in Salt Lake City. 9 o'clock Eastern on November 2nd.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And then the regular season home opener against Youngstown State, Friday,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: November 6th at the Shot, 6.30 p.m. for that. So
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: that is just some of the stuff we'll be talking
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: about with our basketball insider, Marcus Hartman. If you want
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: to talk basketball, the place to be is BuckeyeInsiders.com. You
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: want to talk football, great news, friends. You can go
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: to the very same place, BuckeyeInsiders.com. We're covering the team.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: We're covering recruiting. We're covering X's and O's on the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: football side. It's all at BuckeyeInsiders.com, along with really fun
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: and active community on the Insiders board. We would love
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: to see you there. That'll do it for now. Hope
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: you guys enjoyed that. We'll be back with another show soon.