From Undefeated to Unraveled: Who Is the Real Ohio State?

Over the first two months of the season, Ohio State spent six weeks ranked in the top five. The Buckeyes, as they’ve done throughout Aaron Craft’s career, were overwhelming opponents with their defense and scoring enough to get by.

And they were the biggest tease in college basketball.

It’s easy to say that now after four straight losses, the latest of which came at Nebraska on Monday night. But even Ohio State’s 15-0 start suggested it was best to take a wait-and-see approach because of the competition.

The Buckeyes did not have one win over a team ranked in the top 50 of Ken Pomeroy’s or Jeff Sagarin’s ratings—they’re now 0-3 against both sets—and their best win according to the RPI was a home win over No. 49 North Dakota State.

Now they’ve lost four straight games for the first time since 2008—an NIT year—and as evidenced by losing at Nebraska, a team the Buckeyes beat by 31 two weeks earlier, there are more issues in Columbus than simply the schedule getting tougher.

Who is going to score?

A year ago, Ohio State’s offensive philosophy was pretty simple: Find a way to get Deshaun Thomas a shot.

Thomas took nearly a third of the attempts when he was on the floor, and he did so effectively for such a high-volume shooter. He shot better than 50 percent inside the arc and 34.4 percent beyond—not great, but good enough for defenses to respect him.

Coming into this season, it appeared that the solution to a…

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