Four No. 15 seeds have knocked off a No. 2 in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament since 2012 alone, and if Ohio State can avoid that fate on Friday, it will have to do so against the most prolific 3-point shooting team in the country, which also happens to have the nation’s scoring leader.
A 16-10 Oral Roberts team that finished fourth in the Summit League regular season doesn’t seem all that frightening on paper with those specific resume points, but a glance at the Golden Eagles’ offensive statistics is enough to scare any favored opponent come March.
“They’re one of the best shooting teams I’ve seen on film, and their numbers back that up,” Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann said Tuesday. “They obviously have the leading scorer in the country who’s a really dynamic guard, and they play through him at a really high level.”
Sophomore guard Max Abmas averages a Division I-best 24.4 points per game, but in the past eight games he’s scored just shy of 30 points a night on 54 percent shooting, including a three-game stretch through the Summit League Tournament in which he was named the Most Valuable Player.
From 3-point range, Abmas hits nearly 44 percent of his 8.3 attempts per game, averaging the fourth-most long-range makes in the country at 3.6, and distance is of little consequence in Abmas’ shot selection.
“He can shoot it from right across halfcourt, a couple steps off halfcourt,” Holtmann said. “And he will.”
The Buckeyes coach said he expects Abmas to eventually go pro due to his shooting acumen, which will certainly provide a challenge for the Buckeye defense given that it has not seen anything quite like the 6-foot-1 sharpshooter from Rockwell, Texas, this season.
“Our pickup point’s gonna need to obviously be different than it is typically because of how dangerous he is,” Holtmann said. “He really can come across halfcourt and raise up. And he shoots it with great accuracy, I believe he’s shooting 46 percent in league play from 3, it’s phenomenal numbers. With Steph and Dame, they’ve kind of made that common to some degree in the NBA, but you don’t see it as much in college. It’s part of his game.”
Oral Roberts is no one-man band, though. As a whole, the team leads the nation with an average of 11.3 made 3-pointers per game, 15 spots better than any Big Ten team Ohio State has faced this season, and the team’s 39 percent proficiency from beyond the arc ranks eighth in the country.
The drop-off comes on the defensive end, where Oral Roberts ranks all the way down at No. 287 in the nation in scoring defense, but its offense has been prolific enough this season for that not to matter more often than not.
“They really spread you out and they shoot it at five spots. And their pace of play does allow some teams to score the ball, and yet at the same time they’ve seen it be successful because they’ve outscored a lot of their opponents,” Holtmann said.
Oral Roberts has played No. 4 seed Oklahoma State and No. 11 seed Wichita State close enough to lose by single digits in both matchups this season, and even led No. 3 seed Arkansas by double digits at halftime of their Dec. 20 meeting.
Abmas and the Golden Eagles are more of a dangerous March matchup than most may realize entering the tournament, but that won’t mean anyone would excuse the Buckeyes for an opening round loss after what has been a more-than-promising 2020-21 campaign.
