A quick glance at the Ohio State portion of the box score from Sunday’s exhibition with Walsh and you might think the Buckeyes had their way with the Division II Cavaliers.
You would see Ohio State with 92 points, led by a team-high 26 from sophomore forward Keita Bates-Diop. You would come across junior forward Marc Loving’s double-double with a 24-point, 10 rebound effort. And you would also notice JaQuan Lyle’s near triple-double as the freshman point guard finished with 19 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.
You would see all of those things and think it was a Buckeyes rout.
You would also be wrong.
Ohio State got a test from visiting Walsh in its 92-82 victory. The Buckeyes never trailed in the game — and they were never really in danger of ever losing — but the Cavaliers played hard and certainly weren’t afraid of Ohio State.
“As I told the guys after the game, this is a good thing for us,” head coach Thad Matta said. “We know we’ve got a lot of work to do, as we knew, but this is proof that we do.”
That’s the bottom line from this exhibition affair: There were plenty of things to like about the Buckeyes’ performance, but there are also a ton of question marks about this team.
As many are aware, Ohio State returns just four players from last year’s group. Bates-Diop and Loving are two of those, along with redshirt sophomore guard Kam Williams and sophomore forward Jae’Sean Tate. Tate did not play in Sunday’s exhibition due to a right ankle sprain. The school says he is currently day-to-day.
The rest of the team is made up of newcomers, and Lyle was no doubt the most impressive of that bunch. He featured a smooth, well-rounded game, committed just one turnover, shot 6 for 13 from the field and was 2 for 4 from 3-point range.
“I’m a bigger guard so I’m not scared to go down there and rebound with the big guys; I did a little of that today,” Lyle said afterward. “Just scoring options, that’s from [teammates] making shots and the defense adjusting to them. That gives me an open lane. It’s all a team effort and that’s the bottom line.”
Ohio State fans also saw a new trio of big guys in freshmen Daniel Giddens and David Bell, along with sophomore transfer Trevor Thompson. It was Thompson who started in the middle for the Buckeyes and he was active and played hard, but was also a little inconsistent. Thompson finished with six points and 10 rebounds. Off the bench, Giddens had five points and one rebound while Bell finished with four points.
Austin Grandstaff and A.J. Harris, two freshmen guards for the Buckeyes, both played sparingly. Neither found the scoring column.
Matta’s concerns weren’t with the newcomers on the offensive end, however, it was more on the defensive side as Ohio State allowed Walsh to connect on 14 of 36 3-point attempts. The Buckeyes also committed 20 total fouls as the Cavaliers shot 18 free throws in the game.
“I thought they would play with a little more urgency on the defensive end. We were reacting, not attacking on defense,” Matta said. “I think for those guys this was a good thing.”
Defense was Matta’s main talking point after the game, but it’s something he said was correctable. He was pleased with Ohio State’s offensive output, but for Matta, things always come back to defense.
The Buckeyes saw plenty of things to like Sunday, but they also have plenty of things to work on. The offensive showing was nice and somewhat unexpected, but the defensive performance was lacking.
It was against a Division II opponent too, so there is only so much you can take away from this game. We’ll learn much more about Ohio State starting next week.
“We literally thought about playing two exhibition games because we were so young this year,” Matta said. “But it is what it is and we’ve got real bullets starting next Sunday.”
The Buckeyes’ season-opener is next Sunday at noon against Mount St. Mary’s.
