Ohio State's basketball season begins Friday with a season-opener against UMass-Lowell. Leading up to that game, Eleven Warriors will dive deep into a different aspect of the 2014-15 Buckeyes with a new story each day this week.
The face of the Ohio State basketball program for what had seemed like the last decade is no longer there, but don't get it twisted, the Buckeyes' mentality remains the same.
"Make no mistake about it, everything starts with our defense," Ohio State head coach Thad Matta said at Big Ten Media Day.
Aaron Craft — The Big Ten's all-time leader in steals and last season's National Defensive Player of the Year — has graduated from Ohio State. He will no longer be harassing opposing point guards and setting the tone for the Buckeyes at the defensive end.
And while you can't replace Craft's defensive production on the floor, his impact — along with Matta's — in creating a mindset of Ohio State's program is certainly apparent.
"I'd like to think we can change it up defensively a little bit more than we have in the past," Matta said. "Aaron Craft won a lot of games for us from his defense and we don't have that now so we're looking to make some changes."
The Buckeyes' are a team that prides themselves on their defensive prowess. That's something that won't change as long as Matta is coach.
But what has been a slight change from year's past is Ohio State's use of zone in the half-court setting. The Buckeyes played exclusively a 2-3 zone defense in their exhibition against Walsh on Sunday and it seems like that is going to be the primary defense when the season begins Friday against UMass-Lowell.
"We have a lot of players who have a good understanding of man-to-man because we've been playing it all of our lives," point guard Shannon Scott said. "But the new zone has really been effective for us so I feel like with the athletes that we do have the zone is really gonna work out."
Offensively, Ohio State may have a bit of a different look, too.
With Scott taking over full-time point guard duties from Craft and a freshman class full of dynamic athletes, look for the Buckeyes to try and push the pace when they've got the ball in their hands.
“We just really wanna push the ball now," Scott said. "We know a lot of times last year we didn’t push the ball and there were times when we just kind of walked the ball up the court. Kind of stagnant, kind of robotic when we play, but now we wanna keep going and be in attack mode at all times.”
Added senior forward Sam Thompson: “This year, there’s a lot more ball movement, there’s a lot more player movement. In the last couple years, some of our ball-screen motion we’ve been running, if we weren’t playing well the ball could stick to one player’s hand for 20, 25, 30 seconds and at the end of the shot clock someone flies a 3 up. We’ve worked really hard in practice and we have a lot of good players and we’re moving with a really good pace on offense.”
Ohio State playing up-tempo on offense and a zone on defense? Certainly doesn't sound like the Buckeyes of old.
However, under Matta, everything clearly starts with the defense.
"We have to be a good defensive team to be successful," he said. "We have to use our length and we have to use our athleticism to our advantage."
