When Ohio State assistant coach Tony Skinn was asked for his thoughts on the Buckeyes’ upcoming NCAA Tournament opponent during his appearance on Monday’s edition of The Chris Holtmann Show, he singled out Loyola’s starting point guard as a player he’d rather be coaching than preparing to coach against.
“Their point guard, Braden Norris, he’s tough,” Skinn said. “He’s one of those players that you hate to play against but you’d love to have on the side of your team.”
Had Ohio State offered Norris when he entered the transfer portal three years ago, it’s very possible Skinn and the rest of the Buckeyes’ staff would be coaching him now.
Ohio State was among the schools that reached out to Norris when he entered the transfer portal in 2019 after just one season at Oakland, where he made the Horizon League’s All-Freshman Team after averaging 8.4 points and 5.2 assists per game in his first year of college basketball.
If Norris had gotten an offer from Ohio State, he would have had good reason to be interested. After all, Norris grew up just minutes away from Ohio State’s campus in Hilliard, Ohio, where he was an all-state player at Hilliard Bradley High School. But Norris only received a handful of offers out of high school, and although Ohio State expressed some interest when he decided to transfer, the Buckeyes ultimately decided not to offer him a scholarship.
On Friday, he’ll try to make the Buckeyes pay for that decision when Loyola faces Ohio State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
“I definitely have a chip on my shoulder,” Norris told Eleven Warriors on Tuesday. “I feel like any competitor would. My hometown school decided to go a different route, so yeah, I do have a chip on my shoulder. But at the end of the day, this game has absolutely nothing to do with me and my own personal agenda. It's about the team winning.”
Norris is a big reason why Loyola is in the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row. After averaging 8.5 points and 3.2 assists per game last season, he’s upped his production to 10.3 points and 3.9 assists per game this year, leading the Ramblers in assists and ranking second on the team in scoring.
Skinn described Norris as “a shorter version of Brad Davison from Wisconsin,” who scored 25 points in the Badgers’ win over Ohio State in January, so Loyola’s 6-foot, 180-pound point guard – who also leads the Ramblers with a make percentage of 43.5 from beyond the 3-point line – will certainly be among the players circled on the Buckeyes’ scouting report.
Norris enters the matchup with familiarity with a couple of Ohio State’s players, too, as he says he played against fellow Ohio natives Justin Ahrens and Kyle Young when they were all in high school.
“I played against Justin Ahrens in high school and AAU, and I played against Kyle actually at Ohio State team camp for high school one year,” Norris said. “So you know, familiar territory as far as those two go. All three of us obviously Ohio guys. So it'll be fun.”
Norris says he didn’t grow up as a big fan of any college basketball team in particular, but said Ohio State football was big in his family’s household. And he has a lot of friends from high school who go to Ohio State now, so he thinks it will be fun to play against the Buckeyes.
But Norris transferred to Loyola with one goal in mind – to win games and compete for championships – and he says that’s all he’ll be thinking about once the ball is tipped at 12:15 p.m. Friday in Pittsburgh.
“It's really cool for me. It's cool for me and my family and all my friends, I have a lot of friends that go to Ohio State. So it's really cool for me, but at the end of the day, it’s us being Loyola against Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament, and my only focus, my only goal is to advance to the round of 32,” Norris said.
“At the end of the day, this game has absolutely nothing to do with me and my own personal agenda. It's about the team winning.”– Loyola guard Braden Norris on facing Ohio State
He expects a tough challenge from the Buckeyes, who he says “have really good players” and are “super well-coached,” but he thinks his team will have a chance to pull the upset (at least from a seed-line perspective) if they stay true to who they are and follow their coaches’ game plan.
“I think defense has kind of been Loyola’s calling card, if you will, and I think that's ours this year, too,” Norris said. “We have a bunch of guys that can put it in the hole on the offensive end. So as long as we're locked in on defense, I think our offense will take care of itself.”
