Ohio State to host 1960 national championship basketball team, including Bobby Knight

Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann informed reporters that OSU will host Bob Knight and the 1960 national title team in game vs. Illinois.

Former Indiana basketball head coach Bobby Knight made his triumphant return to Assembly Hall this past weekend, and it was a sight to behold. No matter how you feel about the man, it was riveting to see him walk back into a place he made such a historical venue after a twenty-year absence.

And now, according to comments made by Chris Holtmann to reporters after the Wisconsin loss, it appears as though Knight will be continuing his tour of Big Ten campuses. He will reportedly travel to Columbus to be a part of a ceremony to recognize the Ohio State 1960 national championship squad in which Knight was a part of.

It’ll all go down on March 5 when the Buckeyes play host to Illinois at home. The 1960 squad continues to be the only national title-winning team in program history despite many other close calls.

Not many folks outside of the Buckeye and Hoosier programs know that Bob Knight is an OSU alum and national-title winning player, but it’s true. He was also born in Massilon, Ohio and grew up and played high school basketball in Orrville. He may be most well-known for what he did in Bloomington as a Hall of Fame coach, but he is indeed a Buckeye — born, bred, and cultivated.

 

Ohio State basketball suffers disappointing loss at Wisconsin: Three things we learned

The Ohio State basketball team lost a disappointing and frustrating game at Wisconsin. Here are three things we learned.

So about that whole winning streak. Ohio State traveled to Wisconsin with a three-game winning streak in hand, thinking it had turned some things around. Instead of continuing that theme, the Buckeyes reverted back to some ugly trends that were a part of the January slide that brought on so much concern and resulted in the team dropping from the top five to completely out of the rankings.

Ohio State now sits at 15-8 overall, and just 5-7 in the Big Ten. We’re now entering the home stretch of the regular season with just eight games to go. What happens over the next few will determine whether OSU is soundly in the NCAA Tournament, or finds itself on the bubble.

Anyway, as we do after every game, here are three things we took from the game in Madison.

Next … Toughness defined

WATCH: Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann Wisconsin postgame press conference

Ohio State basketball head coach Chris Holtmann talked to the media after the disappointing loss on the road to Wisconsin.

The Ohio State basketball team couldn’t continue the momentum of winning three-straight conference games leading into the road affair at Wisconsin. The Badgers used a late first-half run to nearly put the game out of reach, a spurt the Buckeyes couldn’t recover from through the last twenty minutes — especially away from home.

Head coach Chris Holtmann met with the media after the game and spoke very briefly (all of about two-minutes) about the disappointing performance. He called out the team’s toughness, the challenge of playing a physical Wisconsin team, and more.

Click on the below and listen to Holtmann’s comments in their entirety thanks to the YouTube Channel of the Columbus Dispatch.

Ohio State now comes back home for two games against Rutgers (Wednesday) and Purdue (Saturday). It needs to start piling up wins to position for the postseason.

 

Micah Potter gains more minutes and more defensive stability

Wisconsin-Ohio State

You can learn by observing, it’s true. However, the best way to learn a craft or skill is to practice and apply it. Classroom education is a part of training, but at some point, doing the actual work must take place.

As the Wisconsin Badgers get closer to the NCAA Tournament, they are realizing that Micah Potter is getting more and more minutes… and that he can hold his own, thank you very much, at the defensive end of the floor. This is one particular sign of evolution which can mean a lot for Wisconsin in March.

Sunday against Ohio State, Potter played 24 minutes in a balanced rotation for Greg Gard. Five players played at least 23 minutes and eight players played at least 11, with no player playing more than 33 minutes. In Potter’s 24 minutes, no Ohio State frontcourt player went off. Kaleb Wesson finished the day with only eight points on 2-of-11 shooting. Kyle Young, who did not play in the first game between OSU and Wisconsin this season, was often matched up against Potter and scored four points in 19 minutes. No Ohio State frontcourt player scored more than 11 points. Ohio State’s entire frontcourt — starters and reserves — scored 33 points on the day, and some of those points came in garbage time, long after the outcome had been decided.

Potter played significant frontline minutes, and Ohio State’s offense was bottled up for most of the game. More responsibility has not led to more breakdowns — not regularly. Potter at home has become a solid defender. We now need to see him deliver a strong defensive performance in a road game against a decent (read: non-Nebraska, non-Northwestern) opponent, but for now, his improvement on defense has been clear.

Funny what happens when adverse circumstances force players to find a higher level of performance. Funny what happens when adverse circumstances force a coach to juggle his roster differently. Wisconsin has entrusted Micah Potter with more work, and the Badgers have shown they can be a formidable defensive team with Potter on the floor for 24 minutes.

If you want some hope-filled news heading into the stretch run of the season, Micah Potter’s defensive evolution would certainly qualify.

Badger bench offers reason to think Wisconsin can be March threat

Wisconsin-Ohio State

With Kobe King no longer part of the 2020 Wisconsin Badgers, it is a basic reality that other players must step up in order for this team to realize its full potential. I am not going to say — or suggest — that the Badgers are a better, more complete team without King in the lineup. This team’s offense was never better than on the nights when King was playing his best ball. However, when a player leaves a team (or is knocked out of the lineup by an injury), the urgency created by that event forces other players to dig deeper. That process of digging deeper can unearth surprises which make a team better than the sum of its parts.

I won’t predict Wisconsin will in fact become that kind of team in the next several weeks, but I do think it is possible. We don’t see it every game — not on a team which has been so inconsistent — but we do see it when Wisconsin plays well.

Brevin Pritzl has been superb in each of UW’s last two home games. He was a huge reason the Badgers beat Michigan State on Feb. 1, and he was instrumental in Wisconsin’s smackdown of Ohio State on Sunday. Pritzl was the main reason Wisconsin’s bench stood out as a positive force against the Buckeyes. Pritzl’s team-leading 19 points enabled Wisconsin’s bench to outscore Ohio State’s bench, 30 points to 16. One can’t find many games in Big Ten play when Wisconsin’s bench has outscored the opposing bench by 10 or more points, but Sunday was one such day. This shows Wisconsin and Greg Gard what this team can become in the next several weeks.

Again, I’m not predicting that a renaissance will happen, but I AM in fact saying that a renaissance is possible. Wisconsin is occasionally getting performances from Pritzl and Tyler Wahl and — on Sunday against Ohio State — Trevor Anderson (with eight big points) which show that with Kobe King out of the mix, the Badgers could generate more contributions from more players.

If — and it is a big IF — the Badgers can get these performances from Pritzl, Wahl and Anderson on a regular basis, this will indeed become a better, more balanced team than it has been for most of the season. No one knows if it WILL happen, but if it DOES, Wisconsin will be the No. 8 seed no top seed wants to see in the round of 32 in late March.

It’s a long season. Wisconsin could develop a longer bench and — in the process — give itself more of a shot in March Madness. Wouldn’t that be something? Let’s see what develops.

Wisconsin once again responds brilliantly after a bad loss

Wisconsin-Ohio State

Maybe this inconsistent Wisconsin Badgers team really is predictable after all. Maybe we should have seen this coming, a complete blowout of the Ohio State Buckeyes on Sunday afternoon in a very happy Kohl Center. Maybe this team — which has 10 losses but a lot of good wins, and is solidifying its place in the 2020 NCAA Tournament despite a mountain of obstacles, annoyances, and hardships — needs to be seen as a team we can reliably analyze.

The 2020 Big Ten season is a season in which Purdue can score 37 points against Illinois and over 100 against Iowa. It is a season in which Ohio State loses 6 of 7 games, then wins three in a row, and then forgets how to play basketball against Wisconsin on Sunday, surrendering a 31-7 run over the final 10 minutes and change of the first half. Big Ten teams aren’t just alternating wins and losses this season; they are alternating very good performances and very bad ones.

Wisconsin is part of this pattern, and Sunday continued it.

Wisconsin could not have played a worse defensive half than the first half against Minnesota this past Wednesday. It could not have played a better defensive half than the first half against Ohio State on Sunday.

From one extreme to the other. This is 2020 Big Ten basketball.

The important point to note is that as noticeable as these results are on a ledger sheet or a box score, they aren’t just data inputs which can be coldly assessed and evaluated. Behind the results are real human beings who struggle with consistency but try to do their best.

This Wisconsin team isn’t consistent — except in its inconsistency.

Part of that reality is bad, as shown against Minnesota. The Badgers delivered their most inspiring performance of the whole season against Michigan State, without two starters… and then followed it up with a total no-show in The Barn. That’s the bad side of this team.

Yet, give these players credit. EVERY TIME they get kicked to the canvas, they get right back up and punch back. More precisely, they punch back accurately and successfully.

Lots of teams would tire of the up-and-down nature of the season, and would get annoyed to the point of distraction after the kinds of losses UW has absorbed in 2020. Yet, this team continues to mentally reset the dial.

Is it exasperating? Of course it is… but it isn’t a complete disaster. It isn’t even a partial disaster. This team is going to be in the NCAA Tournament precisely because it has avoided falling into a five- or six-game death spiral (hello, DePaul!). Wisconsin’s ability to respond brilliantly to adversity, time and time again, is exactly why this team — for all its limitations and all the hard knocks it has endured this season — will have its name called on Selection Sunday.

Consistently inconsistent. Wisconsin is predictable in its lack of predictability. It’s weird, and it is sometimes frustrating, but it’s still a lot better than so many other possible outcomes.

Ohio State at Wisconsin: 3 Keys to a Buckeye victory

Ohio State is traveling to Madison to try and win another Big Ten road game, but it won’t be easy. Here are three keys to victory.

It’s time for another war of attrition known as life on the road in the Big, bad Big Ten. Ohio State has bucked the trend this year somewhat by losing two games at home, yet finding a way to get a couple of rare wins on the road in the league.

Now it must try and do it again, against a team that’s very difficult to play against because of the methodical and physical nature of what it stands for.

It’s a chance to get back to .500 in the league, but it won’t be easy. The Badgers rarely drop a game in conference play at home, even in years when they aren’t competing for an upper-echelon finish in the Big Ten.

Will Ohio State show that it really has turned things back around, or will this be a set back on the way to postseason positioning?

Here are three keys to victory

Next … Patience is a virtue against the Badgers

Ohio State either figured things out or will be exposed by Wisconsin

Ohio State vs Wisconsin

Every college basketball season, you will see at least one prominent example if not more: A team which sets the world on fire in November and December then gets to conference play and receives a beatdown. A team which had all the answers against unfamiliar opponents then arrives in the recognizable environment of conference competition and crumbles.

Look at DePaul. The Blue Demons started the season 12-1 and looked like an NCAA Tournament team. Then they began Big East play. They are currently 1-10 in the league after losing to Georgetown on Saturday. It is safe to say that once DePaul got punched in the mouth and absorbed a number of especially tough losses, the Blue Demons could not get off the canvas. They started on a downward trajectory in the first few weeks of the Big East season and never recovered.

It is so essential to greatness in any endeavor — not just college basketball, and not just competitive sports — to cultivate resilience. None of us are perfect at our own jobs. All we can do after a bad day at work is get a hot meal, eight hours of sleep if we are lucky, and get it right the next day. Do we learn something from our failures? Do we absorb the important insights from a humiliation or setback? It is no sin to fail. The sin is in giving up the fight when we do.

Ohio State was in a period of free-fall this season. The Buckeyes started 11-1 with wins over Villanova and Kentucky. They also crushed North Carolina in Chapel Hill, but the Tar Heels do not represent a quality opponent this season. Ohio State had a resume worthy of consideration for a No. 1 seed on Christmas Day. The Buckeyes made the College Football Playoff semifinals, so OSU had reason to think that it could make BOTH Final Fours in this college sports cycle.

Then came January. It was none other than Wisconsin which gave OSU its first punch in the teeth. The Buckeyes were dazed and rattled. They lost five of their next six games. In the process of losing six of seven games, Ohio State’s only win was over Nebraska, one of the two tomato cans in the Big Ten this season. Essentially, Ohio State went a month without a good win.

Was this team going to continue to plummet, or would it rescue itself?

Over the past week and a half, Chris Holtmann has been able to get his players to come together. Ohio State beat Northwestern — not a great win, but a streak-breaker nonetheless, which might have been just the thing to relieve pressure inside the locker room. Ohio State then beat Indiana at home, but the Buckeyes had not yet beaten a good conference opponent away from Columbus.

That changed a few days ago when the Buckeyes put on their big-boy pants and won a 61-58 slugfest at Michigan. Finally, Ohio State has begun to put some meat on the bone of its Big Ten resume. The Penn State win in December is no longer the only strong result on its ledger sheet.

Now we get to find out if Ohio State can sustain this winning edge, or if the Buckeyes are going to continue to confound and zigzag in all sorts of directions. Is this a solidified team which has not only figured out solutions, but knows how to retain its winning formula on a long-term basis? Or, will Wisconsin expose the Buckeyes and possibly send them tumbling down a hill for a second time?

This is just one dimension of the rich intrigue surrounding Sunday’s game in Madison. Intrigued? I know I am.

Ohio State vs. Wisconsin basketball: How and where to watch and listen

Ohio State travels to Madison to take on Wisconsin. Here’s the television, radio, and streaming information for the game.

The Ohio State basketball team seems to have turned things around a bit after the January thaw that put its postseason plans in a bit of jeopardy. Now, after three wins in a row, things are more solid as far as March goes, but there’s still work to do.

Now the Buckeyes go on the road to take on a Wisconsin team that started some of that misery once the calendar turned to 2020 back on January 3rd. It was a close one, but a four-point loss at home started a downward trend.

Now OSU has the daunting task of winning on the road yet again. It already has two league wins in a row on the opponents’ court. This would make three road wins in a row, and would get Ohio State back to .500 in the Big Ten.

If you’re looking for the game time and where to find this key matchup on television or radio, just click through the next page and find all the information your heart desires to find the game.

Next … television, radio, streaming, game time, and venue

Wisconsin faces an end-of-game challenge vs Ohio State

More on Wisconsin vs Ohio State

The Wisconsin Badgers face many challenges on Sunday against the Ohio State Buckeyes. They are facing an opponent which has won three games in a row. They are facing Kaleb Wesson and will be hard-pressed to shut him out in the final six and a half minutes of regulation a second time this season. Doing so once is an amazing achievement. The Badgers can’t count on replicating it in the Kohl Center. Wisconsin is playing Ohio State without Kobe King, which could alter the matchup in unwelcome ways. You can see and appreciate that many aspects of this game could become difficult for the Badgers to handle.

The dimension of this game — more precisely, the challenge of this game — we will focus on in this piece, however, goes beyond the first Ohio State matchup. This is a broader issue with Wisconsin which reaches through the past few weeks of competition.

Against Minnesota this past Wednesday, versus Purdue on Jan. 24, and against Michigan State on Jan. 17, Wisconsin was blown out, which meant the final few minutes of regulation were garbage time. Against Iowa on Jan. 27 and against Michigan State on Feb. 1, Wisconsin’s offense died in the final several minutes of regulation. Against Michigan State on Feb. 1, the defense was able to bail out the offense, but the Badgers did not have similar luck against the Hawkeyes a few days earlier.

The question is a commentary in itself: How often has Wisconsin — in a close Big Ten game — executed consistently well on offense in the final five to eight minutes of regulation? Not very often. That we have to ask the question is a statement and an indication of this team’s limitations at the offensive end of the floor.

If there is one area in which Greg Gard needs to get more out of his team, it is precisely this: Consistent, quality execution in halfcourt sets in the final five minutes of close games.

In tennis, it is so much easier to serve at 1-1 in the first set as opposed to 5-5 in the third set, when so much more pressure weighs on an athlete’s mind. Similarly, it is so much easier to perform midway through the first half, when the enormity of the moment isn’t nearly as suffocating or terrifying. It is a lot harder to piece together calm and fluid possessions late in a game, when the awareness of the stakes becomes conspicuously prevalent.

Maybe Wisconsin will blow Ohio State out of the water. I certainly didn’t expect UW to get blown out by Minnesota, and yet it happened. Maybe this game won’t even be close.

However, if it is, Wisconsin needs to show its offense won’t break down under pressure. Ohio State isn’t likely to suffer another crippling drought of its own in the final six and a half minutes of regulation.