Nobody outside of either team could see the game, but Ohio State picked up a win on Sunday.
The Buckeyes defeated the Louisville Cardinals, 80-69, in a closed-door scrimmage on Sunday behind a strong performance from Kaleb Wesson, sources told Eleven Warriors. The game was played in Louisville.
Wesson, who averaged a team-high 14.6 points and 6.9 rebounds as a sophomore last year, led the team in scoring against the Cardinals.
Freshman point guard DJ Carton suffered a sprained ankle early in the first half and did not return to the game. Both the severity of his injury and a timetable for his return are unknown.
Sophomore forward Justin Ahrens, who's still recovering from a back injury but is cleared to participate in full practices, did not play in the exhibition for precautionary reasons. Musa Jallow, who had arthroscopic surgery on his ankle on Friday, did not play either.
The Buckeyes' victory in the “secret scrimmage” came against a well-regarded Louisville team that was ranked third in the country in the preseason KenPom ratings. Matt Norlander of CBS Sports listed the Cardinals as one of the eight teams with the best chance to win a national title this season, and ESPN's Joe Lunardi projects them as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. However, the Cardinals were without two of their projected starters – a big man and a freshman guard – for the exhibition, according to sources.
Sunday was Ohio State's only private scrimmage of the preseason. In each of the last two years, Chris Holtmann's teams beat Xavier in closed-off exhibitions.
The Buckeyes will face Cedarville at 7 p.m. on Oct. 30 at the Schottenstein Center in their only preseason game exhibition open to the public before opening the regular season a week later versus Cincinnati. The game against the Bearcats will tip off at 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 6.
