The Eleven Warriors Web Report comes to you weekly from the Spectrum Sports studios in downtown Columbus, featuring our own Beau Bishop, Dan Hope and James Grega.
This week's show was supposed to be all about the upcoming spring football game, and for the most part it was, but the panel had to start this week's show by talking about Tuesday morning's big news for Ohio State basketball, as five-star forward Alonzo Gaffney became the first commitment of the Buckeyes' recruiting class of 2019 and the biggest win on the recruiting trail yet for Chris Holtmann as he enters his second season as Ohio State's coach.
"Getting Alonzo Gaffney, the top player in the state of Ohio, to commit in April like you said, it's huge," Grega said. "It's a cornerstone now you can build around."
As Bishop noted, the commitment of Gaffney could open up a pipeline to the talented basketball program at Garfield Heights – much like the football program built with Cleveland's Glenville High School – where Holtmann could have multiple additional targets in class of 2020 recruit Brent Darby and class of 2021 recruit Meechie Johnson.
Hope, meanwhile, said he expects Gaffney to play a key role in recruiting additional players to Columbus for the class of 2019.
"Now, Chris Holtmann has the chance to really build that class that he needs to take this program to the next level," Hope said. "We saw Thad Matta do that, build some real power classes that took that program to a championship-contending level. That's what Chris Holtmann has to do, and Alonzo Gaffney's a great start to that."
As for the spring game, which is scheduled for 1:45 p.m. Saturday at Ohio Stadium, there's no question that the story will be the quarterback competition between Dwayne Haskins, Joe Burrow and Tate Martell, as it will be the public's opportunity to see how the three quarterbacks stack up against one another after a spring of working to improve.
"That's the way it works when you've got three quarterbacks who have never started a game for Ohio State, and we're trying to figure out which one of them's going to be the starter," Hope said. "Urban Meyer's most likely not going to publicly name a starter until at least fall camp, so there's going to definitely be a lot of analysis about how these three guys do."
Outside of the quarterbacks, though, Hope and Grega agreed that the other position to watch on Saturday will be the linebackers, where the Buckeyes are replacing Jerome Baker and Chris Worley and will also be without Tuf Borland, who is sidelined with an Achilles injury.
"We're talking about maybe having three new starters at that position ... plus the fact that that was already maybe the weakest group on the team last year," Hope said. "So you look at guys like Malik Harrison, Keandre Jones, Baron Browning, Justin Hilliard and Pete Werner, I'm really interested to see how those guys look. Because there's no question that that unit needs to take a step forward this year, and they've got a lot of talent, but it's a lot of unproven talent."
For more on what to expect in Saturday's spring game and the big commitment for the basketball Buckeyes as well as conversation on Urban Meyer's contract extension and the state of Michigan football, tune into this week's episode of the Eleven Warriors Report on Spectrum Sports Mid-Ohio, premiering at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
