It’s here. Precisely 726 days after Ohio State played its last NCAA tournament game and 372 days since last year’s postseason got abruptly canceled due to the pandemic, it’s finally here.
With a head coach once unsure how these past several months would play out and if the 2020-21 season would ever reach the finish line, a roster of players who underwent daily coronavirus tests for months and games almost entirely inside empty arenas, the Buckeyes made it all the way back to March, and the Madness is set to get underway shortly.
| Who | Where | When | TV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oral Roberts (16-10, 10-5) | West Lafayette, Indiana (Mackey Arena) | 3 p.m. | CBS |
The Buckeyes, after earning a No. 2 seed with a 21-9 overall record, 12-8 mark in Big Ten play and runner-up finish in the conference tournament, will take on 15th-seeded Oral Roberts on Friday afternoon in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The game set to tip off at 3 p.m. will be played in West Lafayette at Purdue’s Mackey Arena with a limited-capacity crowd.
“Guys’ emotions are high and super excited to finally be able to play in the Big Dance again and get back to what it feels like,” Duane Washington Jr. said this week.
The Golden Eagles, winners of the Summit League tournament championship, understandably enter the day as 16-point underdogs. They finished with a 16-10 record without any wins against top-100 teams in KenPom, with a mere four wins versus top-200 KenPom teams and with losses to South Dakota State (No. 118), North Dakota State (No. 144), South Dakota (No. 176), UMKC (No. 218) and North Dakota (No. 293) on its resume.
To its credit, though, Oral Roberts ended the season by ratting off five straight wins to earn a bid. Chris Holtmann also spent some time earlier this week talking up its non-conference slate. Unlike plenty of other low-majors and mid-majors in the tournament whose usual early-season games against high-major competition didn't happen due to the COVID-19 wrecking plans, it took its shot at five NCAA tournament teams and hung tough with a few. The Golden Eagles lost to both Oklahoma State and Wichita State by five points, and each were one-possession games with less than a minute remaining.
Sound familiar? The Buckeyes played a number of those that came down to the wire in the Big Ten tournament a week ago. On Friday, they’ll try to put Oral Roberts away and avoid a late collapse that, as E.J. Liddell said, just about gives everybody involved – players, coaches and fans alike – heart attacks.
The recent play from Ohio State should give this team plenty of confidence entering the tournament, even if the fourth-year head coach who has never lost a first-round game doesn’t want to go overboard with assuming anything.
“I think the one thing you can't have is this false sense of, well, we played in a great league so that guarantees us something, because it doesn't guarantee us anything,” Holtmann said. “We've got to earn whatever it is we get. Just because we played in, I think, a league that is as good as it's been in a number of years, it doesn't guarantee any Big Ten team to perform well in the NCAA tournament. It's styles, it's matchups, it's how you play, it's how you perform.”
Three Things To Watch
Only One Path To An Upset
KenPom gives Ohio State a 94 percent chance of winning. Betting sites have the Buckeyes as a 16-point favorite. Bart Torvik's metrics expect them to win by at least 18 points. The margin for error for them in this Round 1 matchup is higher than any games in the calendar year.
So, what would have to happen for Oral Roberts to win? It’s pretty simple. It would have to hit a ridiculous number of 3-pointers. What’s dangerous for Ohio State, though, is that the Golden Eagles have proven themselves fairly capable of doing exactly that.
They’re ranked 11th in the country with Their team-wide 3-point percentage of 38.1 is ranked 11th in the country, and 46 percent of their shots – the 22nd-most in college basketball – come from behind the 3-point arc. They score a nearly equal amount of points on 3-pointers as they do on 2-pointers, which is exceptionally rare in college hoops.
A lot of that production stems from two players: Sophomore guard Max Abmas (6-foot-1, 165 pounds) and junior forward Kevin Obanor (6-foot-8, 225 pounds).
Abmas leads college basketball in scoring at 24.2 points per game with shooting splits of 48.4/43.3/89.9. Seemingly unafraid of the moment, he dropped 33 points on Oklahoma State and put up 28 in a loss to Wichita State. As somebody who attempts 8.3 triples a game, he's a threat to launch the moment he crossed midcourt.
“Our pickup point’s going to obviously be different than what it is typically because of how dangerous he is,” Holtmann said. “He really can come across halfcourt and raise up, and he shoots it with great accuracy.”
Obanor, a stretch forward, averages 18.2 points and 9.5 rebounds per game with 50.3/46.9/88.1 shooting splits. Within Summit League play, he ranked first in the conference by knocking down 50 percent of his 3s.
All of Oral Roberts’ six leading scorers hit at least 34 percent of their shots from deep.
Obviously, defending the arc will be of utmost importance to the Buckeyes. They’ve struggled to do so effectively at times, ranking 191st in opposing 3-point percentage (34.1). The lack of a post scoring threat who’ll necessitate double-teams inside, however, could help the Buckeyes to defend the perimeter the way they’ll need to in order to avoid an upset.
Should Be One-Sided In Paint
Nobody in Oral Roberts’ rotation stands taller than 6-foot-8. Nobody weighs more than 225 pounds.
Not in a long, long time has Ohio State had the opportunity to face a foe without a massive body in the middle to deal with. On Friday, the Buckeyes will, for once, be the bigger team all over the court. The advantages should materialize inside the arc where they need to showcase their trademark physicality while dominating the glass.
Oral Roberts was both borderline atrocious at grabbing offensive rebounds (23.2 percent, 297th) and preventing opponents from getting offensive boards (33 percent, 328th). This is where E.J. Liddell, Justice Sueing, Zed Key and Kyle Young – if he’s able to play – will need to thrive. The Golden Eagles undersized simply shouldn't be able to hand inside.
Ohio State’s Offense Primed To Explode?
Defensively, Oral Roberts has been an absolute mess this season. It has the worst adjusted defensive efficiency of any NCAA tournament team, ranking 285th in college basketball, and its other metrics aren’t much better. The Golden Eagles are 187th in opposing effective field-goal percentage (50.4), 136th in opposing 2-point percentage (49), 265th in opposing 3-point percentage (35.6) and 210th in opposing turnover rate (18.2).
Let’s put it simply: Ohio State, with Liddell and Washington humming, should have no struggle putting up points at will.
Prediction: Ohio State 90, Oral Roberts 72
