COLUMBUS, Ohio - The No. 3 ranked basketball Buckeyes will take their game on the road for only the second time this season when they head up north to take on the 5-4 Minnesota Gophers.
Ohio State, winner of nine straight games for the first time since the Buckeyes went 15-0 to start the 2013 season, will begin a stretch of three games in seven days after some time off for the players to complete their finals.
After a week in which the Buckeyes knocked off North Carolina on the road, demolished Penn State with a 106-point outing and skyrocketed to No. 3 in the polls, the Buckeyes have started to receive some national attention for their efforts.
Even with the college basketball world descending upon Columbus, Kyle Young says Ohio State tries not to pay attention to the outside attention.
“We try and block out that outside noise. On social media, there’s a lot being said about us right now,” Young said. “It’s really trying to keep the same mentality that we had coming into the summer. We know what we got. We got to show people what we got.”
To win Sunday, the Buckeyes will have to do something no Big Ten team has done this season; win on the road. Road teams currently sit at 0-11 in conference games, so Ohio State will have to buck that trend to leave Williams Arena with a 10-0 record.
"We play in the best league in the country. We play in the best, deepest league in the country, no doubt about it. It has been proven again,” Holtmann said. “We’ve played good basketball and you’ve got a guy like Kaleb [Wesson] who has been exceptional, but you understand that other teams in this league are really really good.”
While there are a lot of good teams in the Big Ten, Minnesota is not one of them. The Gophers sit at 4-5, the second worst record in the conference behind the 4-6 Nebraska Cornhuskers, and lost their only conference game against Iowa by 20 points.
The Gophers have four players averaging over 10 points per game including 6-foot-10-inch big man Daniel Oturu who is putting up 18 points, 11 rebounds and over three blocks per game.
Outside of the starting five, however, the Gophers have nobody averaging more than four points per game, and this translates to Minnesota scoring just a tick over 70 points per game, 223rd in the nation.
Defensively the Gophers fare better, holding opponents to just 64 points per game, and they'll have to play well to hold off Ohio State's offense which is averaging over 80 points per game and shooting nearly 50 percent from the field.
One wrinkle that may mess with Ohio State's game plan was the announcement early Sunday that Duane Washington Jr. would not suit up for tonight's game.
Washington was not present at practice on Wednesday, later saying that he was dealing with back spasms and expected to be fine for Sunday's game.
Ironically, he spoke Friday about how the week of rest has helped Ohio State recuperate before their big stretch of games to close out 2019.
“It’s kind of a blessing and a burden. If teams are on a roll and get a week off, it can kind of hurt you, quote unquote, a little bit,” Washington said. “The blessing side of that is you get to recuperate and get back on track whether you’re doing well or doing poorly.”
Without Washington, the Buckeyes will be missing 22.9 minutes per game, 11.4 points per game, and a player who is shooting 53.7 percent from beyond the arc.
D.J. Carton or Andre Wesson can step into the starting lineup in place of Washington, but the Buckeyes will be hoping to get him back quickly with how efficient he's been in what is quickly becoming a breakout season.
If the Buckeyes can pull off the win on the road, they will almost certainly (barring a disaster against SEMO on Tuesday) bring a 11-0 record into the CBS Sports Classic against Kentucky on Saturday.
This will be a big test for the Buckeyes and a good litmus test to see how much of Ohio State's 9-0 record has been their schedule versus how good the Buckeyes may actually be.
“This is my third year now, and we’re making big strides,” Young said. “We’ve had two previously good years, but right now I just think we’ve got bigger goals and that’s something we’re working towards.”
Tonight's game will tip off at 7:00 pm (EST) from Williams Arena and can be viewed on BTN.
