OSU freshman guard JaQuan Lyle (13) during an exhibition game against Walsh on Nov. 9 at the Schottenstein Center. Credit: Khalid Moalim | Multimedia Editor The Ohio State men’s basketball team finally got to step back on the hardwood Sunday after more than seven months since its last game, a loss to Arizona in the NCAA tournament. It was an exhibition game, but the Buckeyes still topped Division II Walsh University 92-82 at the Schottenstein Center. The youthful Buckeyes were led offensively by sophomore forward Keita Bates-Diop, who dropped 26 points to go along with eight rebounds and four blocks, while junior forward Marc Loving added a double-double with 24 points and 10 boards. Bates-Diop’s solid play was not expected by many, but his coach thought otherwise. “(Playing aggressively on offense is something) we’ve talked to Keita about a lot. We saw flashes of that last year in practice,” OSU coach Thad Matta said. “I thought offensively he was as aggressive as we wanted him to be … we’ve been begging him to do that on the court in a game.” The lengthy 6-foot-7 Normal, Illinois, native averaged just nine minutes of play off the bench in 33 contests last season, tallying just 3.8 points a game. Though Matta’s team went home victorious, the impressive performances do not seem likely to show up at many points this season, as OSU is not ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 poll. The last time the Buckeyes were in this situation was in the 2008-09 season, when they also finished the season unranked. They did receive an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament as a No. 8 seed after making a surprise run to the Big Ten championship game against Purdue before falling 65-61. In the best-case scenario, Matta would repeat what he did in his third year as OSU’s coach in 2006, when he took his team from not being ranked to ending the season as No. 6 in the country and earning a No. …
Continue Reading: Ohio State men’s basketball tempering expectations ahead of 2015-16 season
