Picked up Lindy's College Baketball Preview magazine with the obvious choice of Evan Mahaffey on the cover. Who made that decision? Anyway, the Bucks are picked 5th in the Big 10 with the Top 4 being 1. Indiana 2. Purdue 3. Illinois 4. UCLA. From a national perspective, Indiana is the only Big 10 team predicted to go beyond the 2nd round of the NCAA Tourney. They surprisingly don't have Purdue in their Top 10 backcourt nationally (and I thought maybe the Bucks might make the cut), with only UCLA (#8) being the sole big 10 rep. Indiana (#6) and MSU (#9) make the list for Top 10 Frontcourts. From a Buckeye perspective, they have them 5th in the Big 10 and 22nd nationally yet Thornton is on their 3rd Team All Big 10 Team with no other Buckeyes. I know with Diebler's style the playing time and usage may be spread more thin than a lot of other teams. But I still think if osu is 5th out of 18 teams, Bruce is either 1st or 2nd team All Big 10 or 1-2 teammates are joining him on the 3rd team. The kinda wild thing is Lindy's has a Golden Gopher, a Nittany Lion, and a Hawkeye on their 2nd Team and an additional Hawkeye on their 3rd team. They predict Iowa in 16th place, Penn State in 17th, and Minnesota in 18th.

The stats comparison is actually really close for Year 1 if you look at efficiency numbers and per 40 mins stats. But I don't want to go down that road with you again. As far as soph year Liddell, even if Royal played about as well as we could hope for, I seriously doubt he would hit EJ's production numbers. The team make up and style in which we will likely play lends itself to likely quite a bit less usage and raw mins for Royal versus Liddell.

"JJ Sullinger said on X that Devin Royal was torching the nets....." JJ was all about the Bucks. I know this is the same guy that claimed Holt would win a Natty after Season 1. But man, his tweets made our guy Elguapo seem like a pessimist. Gotta love JJ's enthusiasm.

To each their own, but saying Liddell is a bad comparison just seems like an intentional contrarian take with not much to back up. I mean, they both came out of HS with near identical listings in size (Liddell 6'6" 220 lbs, Royal 6'6" 215 lbs). Both were undersized (at least as far as height) PFs. Their Freshmen stats are very similar. Liddell: 6.7 pts/3.8 rebs/16.6 mins 46% FG/ 19% 3pt fg/ 72% free throw. Royal: 4.7 pts/2.4 rebs/ 11.2 mins 51% Fg/ 15% 3pt Fg/ 71% free throw. Both played their best ball down the final stretch of their Freshmen seasons. EJ was an elite jumper. But I don't know how you watch Royal and don't see that he is a very good jumper. Much like EJ, the strength in his jumping is how quickly he gets off the floor. Yeah, he got his shot blocked some, but he is an undersized aggressive PF going against guys 3-4 inches taller sometimes. It happened to EJ some as well. I am not saying Devin is going to be 1st Team All Big 10 or anything like EJ. But I think they are similar in a lot of ways.

They may be waiting until tomorrow. TV/Streaming Schedule is being announced tomorrow at 3pm. We should get tip off times for majority of the games as well. There are only a handful listed at the moment.

Evan Turner was the #47 recruit overall. The Evan Turnover nickname was fitting after his Freshmen year in which he was more known for his turnovers and bad body language than his versatilty. Jon Diebler (50th overall) shot 29% from 3 as a Freshmen and many thought he should transfer and join his brother Jake at Valpo. David Lighty (#32) was a very minimal contributor, albeit on a loaded team, as a Freshmen. Keita Bates Diop (27th overall) was a minimal contributor on a not so loaded team (11 seed in ncaa tourney). I'm sure there are other examples as well. And this is just from one program. Judging recruiting rankings after one season of college basketball seems like bad business. After one season I would say all 4 of the mentioned players were overrated. By the end of their careers, all were likely underrated, some vastly so like Turner. Could Bradshaw and Stewart end up being overrated or even busts? Sure. It is not a perfect science. But I think it is way too early to make that call.

*best win with Holtmann

I'm pumped about the style of play. I get the fear of sloppy play and bad shot selection. But what if it works? Having Nate Oates' Alabama like success with a similar style would be like having your cake and eating it too. Plus it seems like we might actually have an identity. It seemed like too much of the Holtmann era was adjusting to how teams played us. The funny thing is that our best win last year was probably Alabama. And we kind of leaned into their style and beat them at their game.

Good stuff, BC. For those that can't get the content: Jerry Easter (official visit; 32nd overall in 25' class on 247 composite rankings) A'mare Bynum (official; 104th in 25')- teammates with Easter at Link Academy Dorian Jones (unofficial; 68th in 25')- verbal commit Marcus Johnson (unofficial, 28th in 26')- verbal commit TJ Crumble (unofficial; 110th in 26')- has visited osu multiple times in the past. Good friends with Marcus Johnson and Dorian Jones. Nate Miles III (unofficial; not in 247, 4 star in ESPN rankings in 26' class)- former teammate of Easter in 22-23' season. Maybe not the big names of Peterson and Bundalo, but this seems like the biggest (size wise) and certainly most connected visitor group of the fall so far.

I have no issues with the 8th place prediction and I agree I would not want that job in an 18 team league that seemingly has a lot of parity. I will say that the main criticism of the Bucks on paper seems to be their outside shooting, or lack there of. And it makes sense. But we also just watched Purdue go from one of the worst 3 pt shooting teams in the country (32.6%) to one of the best (40.8%) in one season with a very similar roster and the addition of a MVC player (Lance Jones) that shot 28% from deep the year prior. We also saw it on an individual level in Columbus last year with Jamison Battle. He never shot above 37% in 4 seasons and shot only 31% in his final season at Minnesota before jumping all the way to 43% as a Buckeye. Lots of question marks for the Bucks. Could Micah Parrish be a poor man's version of Jamison Battle (i.e rebound in his 5th season after a rough outlier 4th season)? Could Meechie Johnson have an outlier efficiency season with less on his plate from a usage standpoint than he had at South Carolina? Could Bruce's meh 3pt numbers from last year mainly be attributed to having way too much usage in a stagnant offense from early January to mid February? Could Devin Royal make an EJ Liddell like jump from Freshmen to Soph year in terms of 3pt shooting? Same with Aaron Bradshaw in comparison to Kaleb Wesson? Could Junie's rep as the top sharpshooter in his Freshmen class be reinforced after his first season? Lots of ifs obviously. And I don't expect all those answers to be positive. But could 4-5 of those 6 questions end up having positive answers? I think so. I would not bet on their perceived biggest weakness being an actual strength. But I also don't think it is far fetched to see them go from the mid 30s 3pt shooting team from the last couple of years to upper 30s with a pretty big uptick in volume. Again, not placing money on it, but I would not be shocked. And if we knew going into this season that the Bucks would end up shooting in that 37-39% range from deep with "Alabama like" volume, what would our confidence be in picking them in the Top 5 in the Big 10? For me, I would be highly confident. But we obviously don't know that so I am cool with the 8th prediction or around that range.

Trying to temper my expectations for Juni, but man there is a lot of positive buzz around the Reynoldsburg, Ohio native. I saw the video Jon posted, with his face entirely too close to the camera, and he did seem to rave about the backcourt. He even mentioned that Ques Glover "looked the part." I'm taking it all with a grain of salt, but I think it is refreshing to have the backcourt be the perceived strength of the team. I suppose you could argue that was the case last year. But definitely more experience and proven production with Junior Bruce and Senior Meechie versus the high ceiling potential of Soph Bruce and and Soph Roddy. And having our high ranked Freshmen (Juni) getting all kinds of positive buzz (knock on wood) versus Chatman, who I believe was out with a preseason injury at this point last year, seems quite different.

Please Jake get somebody to commit. Soon. This thread is now getting bombarded with debate on the recruiting skills of Depaul's Men's Basketball Coach. We need it bad, Jake. You're our only hope.

Taking it with a grain of salt, but Lunardi's Preseason Bracketology gives us a decent gauge of the strength of the Bucks' schedule. The Buckeyes themselves are projected as a 10 seed. Non-conference: Auburn-2 seed Texas- 5 seed Texas A&M- 5 seed Kentucky-6 seed Pitt- 11 seed Big 10 opponents: Purdue-4 seed Indiana (play twice)- 5 seed UCLA- 6 seed Illinois- 7 seed MSU- 7 seed Michigan- 8 seed Oregon- 10 seed Rutgers- 11 seed Nebraska (play twice)- first 4 out Maryland (play twice)- first 4 out Wisky- first 4 out USC- first 4 out So obviously nobody in the Big projected higher than a 4 seed. But also only 5 teams not projected to at least be on the bubble: Iowa, Northwestern, Washington, PSU, and Minnesota. Bucks play each 1 time. Again, taking it with a massive grain of salt. But once again, BIG looks like a bloodbath of solid teams but likely lacking a title favorite. Though they racked up another national runner up last year. They have to be at or near the top for runners up over the past 25 years, but just can't find a team to win 6 in a row in March for some reason. Oh well. Should be a lot of competitive games on the schedule this year.

Was Ryan Day a proven winner with head coaching experience? I have no idea if Jake will be a huge success or an absolute flop. But guys with similar backgrounds to Diebler get hired in college basketball and college football. It does not happen super frequently, but it also isn't super rare either. The unique thing about the Diebler hire is that you rarely see an assistant get hired after the previous coach got fired. It usually only happens when that coach leaves for another job or retires. But that being said, the Diebler-Holtmann dynamic was kind of different. Diebler was the lead recruiter on nearly every top recruit over the last few years. It was almost awkward how often kids would have quotes about their osu recruitment and they would specifically mention Jake and either not mention Holtmann or only after they mentioned Diebler. Also, considering that Jake took over about two thirds of the way through the season, it wasn't just about the positive results. The defensive aggressiveness and uptempo pace they played with was quite a bit different than the Holtmann era. I mean, to go from nearly dead last in the country in fast break pts under Holtmann to top 3rd in the country in that category is kinda crazy. I think it shows that Diebler was not a Holtmann disciple. He has a completely different philosophy on how to practice and play than Holtmann. Will that style be significantly more successful than Holtmann? I have no idea. But I also think it was far from a guarantee that Dusty May or Sean Miller would be far better. And it will be much much easier financially to cut ties with Diebler in 2-3 seasons financially if he does not live up to expectations versus Miller or May.

Touche'

Sorry to hear that you had a rough summer personally. And sorry to hear that, and other factors, may have impacted your overall enthusiasm for the season and the program. For me, I am just as excited but I feel like I am more relaxed heading into this season. I think defending Holtmann all these years (on here, on social media, in person) taught me a couple good lessons. Number #1, maybe I don't know what the heck I am talking about. Number #2, it's not worth the time and energy defending a particular coach. I like Jake way more than Holtmann. I was born and raised in Ohio. One of my favorite all time Buckeyes is Jake's brother. I much prefer his uptempo style to Holtmann's snail like pace. Yet, I don't plan on arguing for him like I did Holt. Or even like I did when I ended up switching off Dusty May as my favorite candidate to Jake. I got what I wanted. But I think the good thing about the Diebler situation is if this thing does not work out in 2-3 years, it seems like it will be pretty easy for osu to cut ties. And I totally get those that are cynical in the day and age of the portal, NIL, conference expansion, etc. But when they tip it off, or kick it off for football, I feel the same about the Buckeyes as I did when I was pumped to see the likes of Jimmy Jackson, Scoonie Penn, Jared Sullinger, etc. November 4th can get here soon enough.

Negatives Concerning the Schedule: 1. Only two home weekend games in the Big 10 and one is on the same Saturday as the Big 10 Football Title Game, which hopefully the Bucks are playing in. Yet, they have 4 weekend road games. They do have the two Friday night home bangers in January (MSU and IU), but hard to imagine those crowds not having at least a slight boost if they were on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. 2. That end of the season stretch is pretty brutal. The West coast trip to UCLA and USC and closing with a Saturday match-up in Bloomington, with a Nebraska home game (on a Tuesday) sandwiched in between. Positives: 1. Though I do find it a bit of a disadvantage that they only have two weekend home Big 10 games, I kinda love the Friday night bangers. I mean, Campbell doesn't move the needle and Texas A&M is on the road, but Pitt the night before The Game and Sparty and the Hoosiers coming to Columbus on Fridays in January is pretty damn fun. 2. Rutgers on Saturday December 7th competing with Big 10 (hopefully OSU) football kinda blows. But Michigan coming to town on Sunday February 16th (hopefully a CBS National telecast)? Sign me the eff up. Roddy and Dusty facing us on a Tuesday night just would not have the same juice this game deserves. Unless the season is a disaster up to that point, that game should be close to, if not a complete, sell out. 3. I hate to say it since 4 of the last 7 Januaries for osu bball have been disastrous, including the last two. And I will immediately go knock on wood. But the January schedule does not look terrible to me. Tough home opponents in MSU, IU, and Oregon, but although none are technically on the weekend, two Friday nights and a Thursday night aren't bad slots. At Purdue is brutal, but the other 3 road games are Minney, Wisky, and PSU. None of the road games are on the weekend and they never play any road games (or home games) consecutively. I'm not gonna guess a record for the month and completely jinx them. But I'll just say, it could me much much worse IMHO.

I agree, I don't understand why this can't be announced within a week after the non conference schedules are settled. But it should be coming very soon. Last year they announced it on September 19th, so I would guess we will find out some time this week.

You do you as far as your prediction and how you spend your free time. But in the first two months of the season they play Texas, Texas A&M, Pitt, Auburn, Kentucky, and a pair of Big 10 teams before the Big 10 season is in full swing. There are some shitty teams mixed in there as well, just like every major conference team in the country.

I came in here to post this, so I was glad to see someone else felt it was worth posting. I thought the discussion was fantastic, especially the stuff from Mike La Tulip. I've never heard of the guy, but loved the detailed statistical breakdowns (the possible positive regression from Parrish, the tempo stats under Holtmann, etc.). I can see where you think it came across as negative. It certainly wasn't overly positive or in any way a bunch of "sunshine pumping" best case scenario type discussion. But I loved how he brought up how an uptempo style could help quite a bit with the efficiency issues of Parrish and Meechie and how it could help realize the potential of Bradshaw and/or Stewart. He certainly wasn't overly confident that it would unlock those guys a bit, but he definitely did a good job of reasoning why it could with better pace, which never happened under Holtmann.

Agreed. But if you look at the headlines for NCAA men's hoops on ESPN, they include articles about Cooper Flagg being nervous to play Team USA and a spitting incident (that happened two weeks ago) in the TBT between the Louisville and Kentucky alumni teams. I don't think there is much going on anywhere right now. I feel like there are typically a flurry of commitments in the September-November range before the season starts up for both high school and college basketball. Hopefully the Buckeyes are fortunate enough to land a couple players in that time period.

I think you answered your own question with Morris. He played at Gahanna during the same time Sully played at Northland, so I would have to imagine that is the connection there. I would not be surprised if Neal and Bradford have no Ohio ties. I imagine a vast majority of these alumni teams have at least 1-2 players that don't really have a connection to the school or the city/state of the school. Even when CC was a little more loaded up with alumni players in the past they had guys like Demetri McCamey and Talor Battle (Though now he has strong ties to the Bucks) that just had friendship (s) with a coach and/or players on the team. My guess is that Neal and Bradford have played with or competed against a CC player or two overseas and they know each other via that route. Just a guess. I have to imagine these American players that play overseas become pretty close with their American teammates or even league mates.

Fair enough, but it was never 100% former Buckeyes. It was usually 6-7. This year it is 5 if you include Kyle Young (played in first 2 games) including 3 starters. They also have various Ohio/Central Ohio ties with the coach Leon Rogers, Jeff Gibbs (Otterbein legend), Scott Thomas (Bowling Green), game winner Jamel Morris (Gahanna Lincoln HS-suburb of Columbus), etc. I looked up the 2019 champ winning roster. 8 former Bucks were listed but I believe only 7 played (don't think Deshaun Thomas played for some reason). Courtney Pigram (an assistant now), Leon Rodgers (coach now), Jeff Gibbs, John Williamson (former Cincy big man), and Demetri McCamey (former Illinois guard) all played on that team.

Except for 2019 when they won the championship and Sully was the Head Coach.

If you go to the TBT website and go to stats, they have the box score to every game in the tourney. CC was 14-33 (42%) on threes and shot 28-62 (45%) overall with a pretty incredible 17 assists to only 2 turnovers for the game. La Familia only stayed in the game because of free throws. They were only 5-19 (26%) from deep and 23-52 (44%) overall with only 8 assists and 4 turnovers. But they made nearly twice as many free throws as CC attempted. They were 19-25 while CC was 6-10. La Familia did attack the rim relentlessly in the 2nd half. But it felt like those Harrison twins got to the line with any contact and it wasn't necessarily the same case for the CC players. From the 2nd quarter thru the end of the game, CC got whistled for 20 fouls and LA Familia for only 7. Oh well, we got the dub regardless.