Michigan's recent losses to NJIT and Eastern Michigan, and Nebraska's loss Wednesday to Incarnate Word may have helped Ohio State.
Wait, what?
That's what the Buckeyes are saying, anyway. In a crazy college basketball world filled with early-season upsets against unranked opponents, Ohio State, to this point, has managed to avoid falling as a heavy favorite.
| WHO | WHERE | WHEN | TV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morehead State (4-7) | Schottenstein Center | 1 p.m. | BTN |
Perhaps it's because losses by other Big Ten teams to inferior opponents has opened their eyes and proved that on any given night, anything can happen.
"That just shows us that we have to have our mind right every game. No team is invincible and no team is unbeatable," senior forward Sam Thompson said Friday. "You have to come out with your best foot forward or you face losing basketball games and I think it’s really opened our eyes a bit to the possibility of losing games and I think their struggles have sort of helped us.”
Not overlooking an opponent is again the task 12th-ranked Ohio State is faced with when it welcomes a 4-7 Morehead State team to the Schottenstein Center today for an afternoon game.
Since their first loss of the season, the Buckeyes have responded with 20- and 54-point wins. They will look to continue that trend today against the visiting Eagles.
Opponent Breakdown
Morehead State comes to Columbus in the middle of a three-game losing streak. The Eagles' latest loss came at home to Oakland last Saturday, 70-68 in overtime.
Morehead State only has one guy who averages double figures in scoring — senior guard Angelo Warner at 16.1 points per game — but Buckeyes coach Thad Matta thinks that might be because of the number of players the Eagles consistently put on the floor.
"They play 11 guys so there are so many different combinations you can see on the floor," Matta said. "They can play big, they can play small and they've got guys on that team — as you go through every game that they've played — guys are capable of having just a huge night."
Like it does against most of its opponents on the non-conference home schedule, Ohio State has a significant size advantage. But despite that, one place the Eagles may be able to cause some problems for the Buckeyes is on the glass. Morehead State comes into today's game outrebounding its opponents by 5.5 per game.
"That's one of the things we've pointed out to our guys because they're in position with their zone attack," Matta said. "They've got positioning when the shot goes up and we've got to do a great job, especially weak-side blocking out."
Buckeye Breakdown
Even though it has won the majority of its games over the last couple of weeks, Ohio State still doesn't feel like it has played all that well. That is until Wednesday night against High Point, of course.
“Really dating back to probably James Madison, we don’t think that we had been playing our best basketball. We had been winning games with the exception of Louisville by 20, 25 points, but we weren’t doing what we felt we could do on the court," Thompson said. "We weren’t making shots at the rate that we wanted to make shots, we weren’t executing the way we wanted to and we weren’t getting stops the way we wanted to. For us to come out and dominate the game in all facets for 40 minutes was huge for us.”
The Buckeyes defeated the Panthers by 54 points and really played one of their better all-around games of the season. Five guys wound up in double figures and they were led by a career-high 23 from redshirt freshman guard Kam Williams.
D'Angelo Russell somewhat flew under the radar with an 18-point, nine-rebound, five-assist performance and Ohio State got somewhat of a bounce-back game from senior point guard Shannon Scott, who struggled in the Buckeyes' previous two contests.
How It'll Play Out
In a season where some of the other Big Ten teams have fallen victim to the early-season upset, Ohio State has managed to avoid one to this point. There really aren't any reasons to expect that to change today against Morehead State.
All year long the Buckeyes have been declaring the "one game at a time" mentality and it seems to have worked for them as Ohio State's main focus now continues to be getting better each day.
“In the locker room, we always say it’s about us. We just want to play our best basketball," Thompson said. "Our sights aren’t set on mid-December, they’re set on mid-March and early April so we want to continue to get better every day."
