Every day in practice, Ohio State’s starters go against its reserves. This is not uncommon amongst most college basketball teams; the hope, of course, is to help build continuity for the group of five guys who tend to log the most minutes.
What maybe isn’t so usual for the Buckeyes is the results of those practice battles, at least according to one member of the team made up of the non-starters.
“We compete against the starters every day and we usually beat them so we know when we go in the game we’re ready,” Ohio State redshirt sophomore guard Kam Williams said Saturday. “We know if we beat the starters on a consistent basis we can pretty much go in there with the same mindset that nobody can really stop us.”
Williams called his practice team the ‘Gray Squad’ — the group wears gray uniforms in practice, the starters wear scarlet. On it, he is joined by A.J. Harris, Mickey Mitchell, Daniel Giddens and David Bell. Those are the five guys who come off the bench for Ohio State and it’s a unit that has played quite well for the Buckeyes in recent games despite the fact the team has hit a bit of a rough patch in the win-loss column.
Williams and Harris combined to score 25 points off the bench in Ohio State's 75-64 loss to Purdue on Thursday; Giddens scored six points, grabbed four rebounds and had two massive blocks against the Boilermakers.
In the Buckeyes' only win during its last four games, a 94-68 pasting of Rutgers, Williams scored 14 points and Harris had seven. Two weeks prior, in the Buckeyes’ lone road win in the Big Ten, Williams scored 21 points and Mitchell gave Ohio State a huge lift with some highlight reel passes off the bench in a 65-56 victory against Northwestern.
“When they come into the basketball game, the level of play sort of elevates in terms of intensity,” Ohio State head coach Thad Matta said of his bench. “Daniel challenges shots, Kam, if he gets it you know it could go in and then with A.J. the difference between him and JaQuan [Lyle] in terms of pace and pushing up defensively, I think that’s a good thing for this team.”
At least recently, the Buckeyes' bench has been holding up their end of the bargain despite the fact they haven't won a ton. And perhaps Ohio State hasn't been winning because it needs more consistency from its starters.
Marc Loving has made just 2 of his last 16 attempts from 3-point range and is averaging just 9 points per game over the last four; Keita Bates-Diop has been held scoreless in two of the Buckeyes’ last five games and scored just six points in another; and Lyle, who played the two best games of his career against Indiana and Rutgers, struggled quite a bit in three of Ohio State’s last five games.
The production is there from the starters in spurts, but as of late there has been a lack of consistency from that unit.
“We’re not good enough for not everybody to play well in the Big Ten,” Matta said. “Whatever it is, if guys have got to play themselves out of a bad first 10 minutes or whatever it is, knowing that if you’re not scoring there’s still a lot of other things you can do to help this basketball team.
“That’s ultimately where we have to get to quickly.”
Perhaps Williams was stretching the truth a bit when he claimed Ohio State’s bench wins the majority of the practice battles; Harris claimed their team wins more often than not, as well. Maybe he wasn't. But in fairness, none of the Buckeyes’ starters were available Saturday to defend themselves and Matta was not asked about the situation, either, as he addressed the media prior to the players.
As of late, in games, though, Ohio State’s bench has been the more steady group. For the Buckeyes to start winning games again, the starters have to join the party.
“When your name is called, go do your part; go do your role,” Harris said. “[Winning practice is] a big plus for us because we’re the bench players so when we get in [the game] we’ve got to do our role.”
