Ohio State basketball is doing something Friday night it hasn’t done in the Thad Matta era.
The Buckeyes are opening the season on the road.
Matta begins his 13th season leading Ohio State as his team travels to play Navy as part of the Veterans Classic. The Buckeyes and Midshipmen square off at 9 p.m. in Annapolis.
Matta said Wednesday he feels good heading into Year 13, and he feels his team is ready to kick off its season against the Midshipmen.
“I’m ready to go,” Matta said. “I think from the standpoint of I’m excited to play, I’m excited for the event that we’re in. From my standpoint, I’m jacked up, ready to roll.”
After missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2008, Matta and Ohio State are in search of a bounce-back season. The Buckeyes return their top-six scorers from last year’s team and bring in a group of four first-year players who figure to provide depth at key positions.
Ohio State plays a rather challenging non-conference schedule this season with matchups against Providence, No. 18 Connecticut, No. 16 UCLA and at No. 8 Virginia in addition to Friday’s game against Navy. It should prepare a still relatively young Buckeyes team for another grueling Big Ten season.
The quest for Ohio State to return to the NCAA tournament begins Friday night against Navy. What follows is a breakdown of the Buckeyes’ season-opener.
Opponent Breakdown
Jae'Sean Tate hadn't seen a ton of film from Navy — it's the season-opener, remember — before he got asked the question, but Ohio State's junior forward knows what to expect when playing a service academy.
“We’re starting to watch tape today," Tate said earlier this week, "but we’ve heard that they’re a very physical, very smart basketball team and they’re a great shooting basketball team also.”
The Midshipmen were 19-14 a year ago and finished a modest 9-9 in the Patriot League standings, good for a fourth-place tie. In Ken Pomeroy's advanced statistical ratings, Navy finished just 204th. The Midshipmen ranked just 276th in the country in adjusted offensive efficiency but were 140th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency.
Navy lost three of its top-four scorers from a year ago, but the Midshipmen do return their leader, junior guard Shawn Anderson. The 6-foot-4 New Castle, Pennsylvania native averaged 13.2 points and 4.0 rebounds per game a season ago.
The Midshipmen are coached by former Penn State head coach Ed DeChellis, so Matta knows what to expect Friday night.
“From what we’ve seen from last year and a little bit of this year, a very disciplined, tough basketball team," Matta said. "They’ve really got some guys who can shoot the basketball and they’re going to run their stuff and they’re very physical on cutters."
"Ed, knowing him from his Penn State days, does a tremendous job of coaching his team. They’re going to be disciplined in the half court offense, but they will push in transition. If they’ve got an open 3, they’ll let it go.”
Buckeye Breakdown
Ohio State came away an 85-67 winner in its lone exhibition against Walsh. The Buckeyes were in control throughout and cruised comfortably in the second half against a Division II opponent the way they should.
Matta played 11 guys against the Cavaliers as most coaches would in an exhibition. It was important to get Derek Funderburk, Micah Potter, C.J. Jackson and Andre Wesson — Ohio State’s four first-year players — as many minutes as possible. Potter actually started the game at center for the Buckeyes and Matta said Wednesday the true freshman will likely get the call again Friday night against Navy.
As expected, most of the production came from Ohio State’s returning players. Sophomore point guard JaQuan Lyle led the way with 14 points and six rebounds while Kam Williams (13 points), Keita Bates-Diop (12) and Jae’Sean Tate (10) also reached double figures for the Buckeyes.
Still, though, Ohio State found out it had plenty to work on ahead of the matchup with the Midshipmen.
“I thought we were OK,” Matta said. “I think that we’ve got to continue to think the game of basketball and we had some segments in the game where we weren’t as sharp as we needed to be. Those are things that we’re pointing out just in terms of making sure we’re doing, most of the time, what we are set out to do and doing it with great pace and doing it with great execution both offensively and defensively.”
Added Tate: “We didn’t play as good as we know we can. We’re looking forward to doing that against Navy on Friday.”
With the six core returners and four newcomers, Matta said he hopes this year’s team has the depth that can help Ohio State play at a faster pace than it did a year ago. Lyle, Tate, Bates-Diop, Potter and Marc Loving started against Walsh while Williams, Trevor Thompson, Wesson, Funderburk, Jackson and David Bell all came off the bench.
The bulk of the minutes will go to the starters, Thompson and Williams, but there’s still plenty of playing time available.
How It Plays Out
It’s a tricky game for Ohio State being that it's a true road game to open the season, but the Buckeyes are heavy favorites here and shouldn’t have much of an issue against the Midshipmen.
But Friday is certainly a good test for Ohio State to see where it is right out of the gate. Playing on the road in college basketball is never easy, and the Buckeyes know that.
“You know you’ve got to go in every game with the same mindset whether it’s home or away,” Tate said. “It is a test, an early test, but as long as we go in there with the right mindset and just trust what Coach has to say, play hard, then everything else will take care of itself.”
It’s the season-opener for both teams, so to expect this to be a perfectly played game would probably be a bit unrealistic. In the end, however, Ohio State’s talent should show in the second half and the Buckeyes should come away with a victory.
A win probably won’t come easily, though.
“I think we’re pretty excited, pretty eager,” Williams said. “We didn’t play to the best to our abilities last week and we’re excited to show how much farther we’ve come since that last game. It’s definitely an honor going to the Naval Academy to play and I think everybody is excited about that so we’re just going to go from there.”
Tim’s prediction: Ohio State 74, Navy 61
