Ohio State's basketball season came to an earlier end than expected with a first-round loss in the NCAA Tournament, leaving some questions about the state of the program after Chris Holtmann's fourth year.
That's where we begin this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, as we discuss what happened to Ohio State basketball in Friday's loss to Oral Roberts, what we make of the Buckeyes' 2020-21 basketball season as a whole and why we think next year will be a crucial year for Holtmann and the Buckeyes – who should have their best roster yet of Holtmann's tenure at Ohio State – to take the next step and prove they can win in the postseason.
We also discuss whether the Big Ten was really overrated this year (22:48), whether the Big Ten's 20-game conference schedule and late-finishing tournament hurt the conference in the NCAA Tournament and consider a listener-submitted question: Is there any number of men's basketball wins Ohio State fans would trade a football win for? (Feel free to comment with your answers.)
In the second half of this week's show (32:35), we discuss our takeaways from the first week of spring football interviews, including the Buckeyes' plans to experiment on defense, Miyan Williams' rise and TreVeyon Henderson's confidence. We also play “buy or sell” (44:30) on whether Zach Harrison will live up to the hype in 2021, whether a full spring will actually make a big difference for Ohio State's defense, whether the bullet will actually exist this year and whether Ohio State will ever play two running backs on the field at once.
Finally, Dan shares a parting thought (58:20) on the threatening messages E.J. Liddell received last week and what he hopes people will learn from that disturbing situation.
Real Pod Wednesdays is available on various listening platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, or you can tune in by clicking on the audio player above.
