Ohio State isn’t just a football school, and it showed it during the 2019-2020 men’s basketball season. The Buckeyes get a chance to continue that into the 2020-21 season.
According to ESPN, they’ll again be one of the country’s top basketball programs. However, much of that may hang in limbo until we figure out whether Kaleb Wesson is returning or not.
The team doesn’t have many high-level recruits inbound, so Chris Holtmann will know early on what he’s dealing with because it’s a veteran group that got a boost with Harvard grad transfer Seth Towns coming on board.
That said, ESPN columnist Jeff Borzello ranked the Villanova Wildcats, a team the Buckeyes absolutely dismantled early in the season, No. 1. Creighton, Gonzaga, and Baylor followed in respective order.
My first edition of the Way-Too-Early Preseason Top 25 for the 2020-21 season:
1. Villanova
2. Creighton
3. Gonzaga
4. Baylor
5. Kentucky https://t.co/VhNGRgXUmj— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) March 23, 2020
There are three teams from the Big Ten team in the top 15 (Iowa at No. 7 and Michigan State at No. 9 were the other two). Here is an excerpt of what he Borzello says about OSU in 2020-2021.
“Which Ohio State will show up next season? The one that started 11-1 and sat near the top of the rankings? Or the one that lost six of seven to drop to 2-6 in the Big Ten — or the one that won nine of its last 12? I think it’s something more like the third option, even though there are some personnel issues entering the offseason.”
Things could gel better than expected and vault Ohio State in the top ten, but don’t expect a top-five team to be rocking in Columbus next season like we saw early this season. Stills, there’s enough talent, experience and depth for the Buckeyes to make a lot of noise next winter.