There were times last season when Ohio State head coach Thad Matta would look at D’Angelo Russell, whether it be during game action or a timeout, and tell the Buckeyes’ superstar freshman guard to take over the game.
More often than not Russell obliged.
That’s what happens, though, when you have one of the best players in all of college basketball. A coach can glance out on the floor at any point in the game and demand their superstar put the team on his shoulders and carry it to a win.
But Matta doesn’t have that luxury this year; not with this particular Ohio State team, anyway. The Buckeyes don’t have a Russell — not many teams in the country do — and they seemingly have to find a different way to win each game.
The 12th-year Ohio State coach is perfectly fine with that.
“In some ways, I like that about this team,” Matta said after the Buckeyes’ 94-68 rout of Rutgers on Wednesday night. “What I ultimately want from this team is each guy to play his best basketball and as I told them Monday, when we won seven straight games not every guy played really well in there, but other guys carried their weight.
“I think a coach’s dream is when you look out there and guys are doing what they’re supposed to do, how they’re supposed to do it.”
Against the Scarlet Knights on Wednesday, it was freshman point guard JaQuan Lyle who led the way for Ohio State. Lyle recorded just the fifth triple-double in program history with 16 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists.
Last week, in a 65-56 road win at Northwestern, it was Kam Williams who sparked the Buckeyes off the bench with 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting. Before that, it was Marc Loving who had a career-high 27 points in a 75-73 victory against Illinois.
Earlier in the year, in Ohio State’s season-changing victory over Kentucky, Keita Bates-Diop was the Buckeyes’ leading scorer with 14 points. But they put three additional guys in double figures and Williams was close, scoring nine.
With no go-to scorer like Russell, that’s just the way things are this year. Sometimes it’s a different guy each night with a big game; other times it’s a total team output.
For the season, Loving is the team's leading scorer at 14.6 points per game. But three others are also averaging in double figures: Bates-Diop (11.8 ppg.), Lyle (10.6 ppg.) and Jae'Sean Tate (10.6 ppg.).
“I think we’re a better basketball team when we’re running in transition and making plays for everybody,” Lyle said.
Currently sitting at 4-1 in the Big Ten, Ohio State has an opportunity in the next week to fully cement itself back into the NCAA tournament discussion. The Buckeyes play at Maryland and at Purdue their next two times out. The game against the Terrapins is noon Saturday.
If Ohio State is going to go on the road and steal one of those games — and add a second top-25 win to its resume in the process — it will likely be because it found a different way to win the game.
Matta doesn’t have a Russell-type on this year’s group. So it has to be this way.
“I like the fact that we have some different guys that can kind of get on a roll,” Matta said. “We’ve sort of shown that with a lot of different leading scorers and hopefully we can continue that.”
