Once Buckeye Nation finally wakes up from their national championship hangover, they are going to be sorely disappointed in the basketball team thus far.
Sure, Ohio State is a respectable 14-5 overall, but you would be hard-pressed to find a quality win on that resume. What’s more, it already has two head-to-head losses to Iowa and is sitting at .500 in the conference before it has even played the likes of Wisconsin, Michigan State and Maryland.
That is reason for concern.
There are also specific concerns outside of the overall larger picture of reaching the NCAA tournament without a quality win. Here are a few of them.
Slow Starts
Locker-room speeches made by coaches before big games are overrated and work better in movies as dramatic moments than anything else, but Thad Matta may want to try one next time. His Buckeyes aren’t exactly coming out of the locker room ready to hit the court.
Ohio State was trailing Louisville by 17 at halftime and North Carolina by 12 at halftime in its two biggest nonconference tests and eventually lost both. It also fell behind 17-5 in the first matchup with Iowa before the first TV timeout.
The Buckeyes even trailed at the half in their 16-point win against Illinois, fell behind by double digits in the first half against Indiana and found themselves down 9-0 in the first two minutes in Saturday’s loss to Iowa.
Constantly playing from behind for an entire game can be physically exhausting, which is…
Continue Reading: Ohio State Basketball: Buckeyes’ 5 Biggest Concerns in Big Ten Play
