The mental, motivational and more or less intangible side of basketball are elements that can often be undervalued by spectators and pundits alike.
A player’s on-court production is quantifiable. There’s no way to calculate the mentality that same player brings. There’s no stat called hustle plays per game.
Ohio State’s transfer portal acquisition on the wing, Micah Parrish, had strong statistical outputs at his previous stop, San Diego State. But it’s those intangible qualities that he was perhaps most known for.
“At San Diego State I was known as the tone-setter. I set the tone on defense,” Parrish said. “When I set the tone, most of the time, usually all the time, teammates follow, everybody follows. That’s what I’m trying to do here on the defensive and offensive end.”
With one year remaining in his collegiate career, Parrish aims to be a tone-setter once again for the Buckeyes and help the team inch toward some of the immaculate heights he and the Aztecs achieved during his two years in San Diego.
“That's one of the reasons why I came here,” Parrish said. “I looked at the team, looked at the coaching staff and the surrounding areas, everything like that. I feel like this is somewhere we can win at. I feel like they are here making this step. It's right here. We’ve just got to get over the hill right now. And I feel like this year will be the year.”
Parrish played his first two college seasons at Oakland, where a breakout sophomore campaign featuring 12.1 points, six rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.7 steals per game landed him the opportunity to link up with San Diego State.
The Aztecs have a sneakily robust basketball tradition, at least for a Mountain West school. They’ve been to the NCAA Tournament 11 of the past 15 seasons and made the Sweet 16 four times in that span alongside eight Mountain West regular-season conference titles and five league tournament championships.
There was nothing sneaky about their profile in Parrish’s first season, though. San Diego State made a run all the way to the 2023 NCAA Tournament championship game, where they lost to UConn 76-59. It was the first Final Four in the school’s history. The Aztecs followed that up with a Sweet 16 berth in 2023-24.
“I won a lot (there),” Parrish said. “So coming here, I'm trying to take some of the values I learned from winning and extend that here to this up-and-coming program with Diebler. So I'm excited. I'm excited about the team. I'm excited about the future.”
Adding transfers with winning backgrounds was a priority this offseason for Ohio State coach Jake Diebler. Meechie Johnson Jr. returns to Columbus after helping guide a complete turnaround at South Carolina. Rising sophomores and five-star talents Sean Stewart and Aaron Bradshaw transferred in from blueblood programs in Duke and Kentucky, respectfully.
“All four of those guys were in the NCAA Tournament and won at a certain level last year,” Diebler said on June 10. “That’s something I’m really excited about, their experience. I mean, Micah played in the national championship game two years ago and the Sweet 16 (last year).”
"I feel like this is somewhere we can win at. I feel like they are here making this step. It's right here."– Micah Parrish
Parrish’s most recent season with San Diego State was his best as he put up 9.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.2 steals per contest. Each of those numbers ranked in the top four on the team.
It’s that sort of versatility that was part of the draw for Diebler to Parrish in the portal. With one fewer guard in Ohio State’s rotation – at least for the time being – after Taison Chatman suffered a season-ending ACL tear, Parrish will be called upon to handle the basketball plenty.
Even if the Buckeyes add another piece in the backcourt, as there's a good chance they will, Parrish remains part of the plan in terms of dribbling and distributing the basketball.
“I think I've been pretty open about this, I want to play more ballhandlers. I think that'll help us play faster,” Diebler said on June 20. “Evan (Mahaffey) can certainly do some of that. We had really big plans for Micah from the moment we started recruiting him, this doesn't impact those plans. They were big from the beginning.”
The element of his game that Parrish is most excited to display is his scoring. After never quite reaching a double-figure point-per-game average at San Diego State, he’s eager to cross that plateau with the Buckeyes.
“Right now we’ve been running a lot of zoom actions and I’ve been getting an opportunity to show my scoring ability off of that,” Parrish said. “I think I'm going to be able to show a lot of people that I can actually score a lot more than I showed the last few years at San Diego State. That was big for me and another reason why I came here, is I feel I was able to show my offensive talent.”
A desire to play closer to home was a top factor in Parrish’s desire to join up with Ohio State, as he hails from Michigan, but it’s also the bond he built in short order with Diebler – a recurring theme this offseason – as he tries to forge a professional basketball career.
“It was the family atmosphere. I feel like he created a family bond with me early and that’s big to me,” Parrish said. “Also, he believed in me. He believes that I'm a pro. With those two, I just knew I couldn’t pass it up. We were on the phone, FaceTime all the time, text messaging back and forth. I didn’t even take an official visit here before I committed. So that’s how much I believed in him and in the team.”
Parrish will hope to set a pro tone as the Buckeyes’ most veteran wing in 2024-25, and in doing so push the team toward its first NCAA Tournament berth in three years.
