COLUMBUS, Ohio — E.J. Liddell didn’t know how many turnovers he had recorded over the stretch of games until the Ohio State coaching staff told him.
After 19 turnovers in his last four games heading into Saturday’s matchup with No. 22 Wisconsin, the junior forward saw himself at the top of the list in college basketball in turnovers recorded by a non-guard.
“That kind of stuck with me,” Liddell said.
Watching the film heading into the matchup against the Badgers, Liddell said it was all correctable: being stronger with the ball, becoming more aware of the pressures around him, finding ways to find open teammates in the midst of the attention he sees.
Saturday afternoon, there was an adjustment period for the junior forward, recording two turnovers in just over six minutes of play.
But after, Liddell was the Liddell Ohio State knows and loves.
He recorded 28 points, making 11 shots on 16 attempts from the field, with nine rebounds — four offensive rebounds — and four assist, not recording a turnover in the final 34 minutes of game play.
“When we do the simple things and we take care of the ball, we get a great shot every time,” Liddell said after Ohio State’s 18-point win against Wisconsin Saturday. “We’re going to keep building and keep getting better. Guys are going to keep gaining confidence and that’s what we’ve been doing these last couple games.”
It’s a stretch where Ohio State has continued to be one of the best offensive teams in the country.
Despite averaging 12.5 turnovers per game with a turnover margin at -1.3 — No. 7 in the Big Ten — the Buckeyes have the No. 7 offensive efficiency rating in the country, according to KenPom, one of two Big Ten teams, along with No. 1 Purdue, in the Top 10. Ohio State also has the 12th-best effective field-goal percentage in college basketball at 56.9%, along with shooting 49.1% overall from the field: second-highest in the conference.
Much of that has to do with Liddell, a player, head coach Chris Holtmann says, who “can roll out of bed and get you 15 or 20.”
“It’s just how he’s wired,” Holtmann said. “He’s always been that way.”
It’s the way Ohio State is wired too. It’s a team that goes where he goes: averaging nearly 30 minutes per game with more than 20 points per game and over seven boards per game.
Liddell’s in the middle of the two biggest challenges Ohio State faces as a team: turnovers and defensive rebounding, averaging 36.2 boards per game: the third-lowest average in the Big Ten.
But when Liddell is keeping possessions and getting rebounds, he’s leading a machine that can seemingly score at will.
This is the Liddell Holtmann wants to see and something that he doesn’t want to see change, even through the film-watching, the sessions with assistant coach Ryan Pedon charting turnovers and making that his overall emphasis.
“He’s got to play with some aggressiveness, so I can’t freeze him up,” Holtmann said. “There’s a balance there. It’s like a quarterback throwing interceptions. There’s a balance. You don’t want it to take away from his aggressiveness.”
Holtmann and Liddell don’t have to focus on that immediately, though.
After Ohio State’s 18-point win against the Badgers, the Buckeyes are off until Saturday when they take on Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic.
Holtmann said he needed a mental break, that his players need a mental break after three games in the span of a week, what he called a “gauntlet.”
But as he looks back at his team’s first 10 games of the 2021-22 season, Liddell sees a group that will be a continued force to be reckoned with day in and day out as Big Ten play nears.
And the junior forward knows how important of a role he plays in that potential.
“When we’re on our stuff, I feel like we’re the best team in the nation, easily,” Liddell said. “When everybody’s doing the simple things, making the right plays, taking the right shots, I feel like we can be up there with everybody.”
