One of the biggest question marks around Ohio State’s basketball program the last few years has been the ability — or inability, in some cases — to develop players over the course of their careers. Many feel there were far too many recent players who left the program without significant improvement.
So it wasn’t all that shocking when Buckeyes’ associate head coach Dave Dickerson, who made a rare appearance Wednesday afternoon with the media, said he was anticipating a question about player development.
“I kind of knew that question was coming,” Dickerson said before pausing briefly to collect some more thoughts. “Back when I played we didn’t have coaches that could work with guys during the summer. What you did was you went out and worked on your weaknesses and you did it individually or did it with a teammate.”
“[The 2015 senior class], those guys won a lot of games here. Because they came in as one way and left maybe as the same perceived player, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t improve. They were good people, good ambassadors for the program and they won a lot of games. Whenever you can get to four NCAA tournaments, get to a Final Four, an Elite Eight and win Big Ten championships, I look at that as being successful.”
The aforementioned 2015 senior class — Shannon Scott, Sam Thompson, Amir Williams and Trey McDonald — went 109-37 (.746 winning percentage) over their four-year careers at Ohio State. And as Dickerson mentioned, that group made a Final Four and an Elite Eight while also claiming both a Big Ten regular-season and tournament title.
But all of those accomplishments came in the first two years for that class — before any of those four were more than role players. And with the program’s slight slide the two years after those achievements where that core group never really reached those expectations, and then again this past season, a new narrative was formed.
Why can’t Ohio State develop its players like it once used to?
It gave fans a somewhat valid reason to be concerned for the current group on Ohio State’s roster. The Buckeyes return their top-six scorers from last year’s team that failed to make the NCAA tournament and are bringing in a four-man recruiting class that is expected to fill some holes after several transfers.
But now there’s a legitimate worry from some that this group won’t ever fully develop similarly to the group before them.
“With this group that we have coming back with the returning guys and the incoming guys, we want to get back to that old-school feel and we want to put responsibility on them to come in in June as better players and come in in October as better players and better people,” Dickerson said. “We understand that there’s a sense of development from the coaching aspect, but guys who want to get better, get better.”
If Ohio State’s core of returning players does not take a big step forward next season, that certainly won’t ease the minds of any Buckeyes fans. It would also be quite alarming and may show that maybe the lack of development wasn’t just due to one class. Perhaps there is a bigger issue.
But Dickerson said he feels quite good about who is coming back for Ohio State and that the development should come with that.
“We’re in a good place, we have a great feel for our program,” Dickerson said. “We have a great feel going into May, June and July for our team next year and we’re excited about it.”
