What to Expect: IU basketball travels to Ohio State for regular season finale
- Alex Bozich
- 8h ago
IU basketball will seek its fourth road win this season on Saturday evening. The Hoosiers will face a hot Ohio State team at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus, Ohio.
The Buckeyes are 19-11 overall and 11-8 in the Big Ten, while the Hoosiers are 18-12 and 9-10 in league play. Saturday’s tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m. ET on FOX:
IU basketball will try to keep its NCAA tournament chances alive this weekend in its final regular-season game.
Numerous slip-ups – at Minnesota and at home against Nebraska and Northwestern – have put the Hoosiers in a must-win situation against a surging Ohio State team. The Buckeyes, once on the outside looking in for March Madness, are firmly in the field in most projections after a 4-3 record in their last seven contests.
If the Hoosiers can’t come away with a win on Saturday, a deep run in next week’s Big Ten tournament becomes a necessity even to entertain the thought of an NCAA tournament appearance.
MEET THE BUCKEYES
Jake Diebler took over the Ohio State job on an interim basis in February of 2024 after Chris Holtmann’s dismissal and is in his second full season at the helm for the Buckeyes.
Last season’s Ohio State team finished a disappointing 17-15 but Diebler was able to retain his three best players in Bruce Thornton, John Mobley Jr. and Devin Royal and is on track to make the tournament.
Like Indiana, the Buckeyes aren’t deep and primarily deploy an eight-man rotation that is led by Thornton, a senior guard who has never played in the NCAA tournament.
More of a scorer than a distributor, Thornton leads Ohio State in scoring at 19.9 points per game and in assists with 3.8 per contest. He’s also second on the team in rebounding with 5.2 per game. He’s shooting 55.2 percent from the field, 39.4 percent on 3s and 81.9 percent from the free-throw line.
The 6-foot-2 Thornton is one of the most efficient guards in the Big Ten and has scored in double figures in 10 straight games. He’s shooting 63.1 percent on 2s in league play, which is 14th-best, and 38.1 percent on 3s in conference games, 25th-best.
He’s joined in the starting backcourt by Mobley, an elite shooter who can change a game quickly with a 3-point barrage. Since missing three straight games, Mobley has been on a heater over Ohio State’s last three games. After hitting eight of his nine 3-point attempts in a blowout win at Penn State on Wednesday, the 6-foot-2 Mobley is 16-for-24 on 3s over his last three games. Mobley averages 15.8 points and is shooting 43.9 percent on 3s in Big Ten games, fourth best in the league.
The Buckeyes have two other players averaging in double figures in Royal and Christoph Tilly, with Amare Bynum averaging just below 10 points per game.
Royal, a 6-foot-6 junior, is a polished scorer from 15 feet and in. His 14 points per game are third on the team and he leads the Buckeyes with 5.7 rebounds per game.
Bynum is a 6-foot-8 freshman who starts at the four and should be a major piece in future seasons for the Buckeyes. He’s already made a significant impact in his first season, averaging 9.5 points and 4.7 rebounds in 27.6 minutes per game while shooting 50 percent from the field.
Tilly, a 7-footer originally from Berlin, Germany, transferred in the offseason after three seasons at Santa Clara. He averages 11.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and is a good passer for a big man with 2.3 assists per game. He’s shooting 46.9 percent from the field and only 25 percent on 3s.
The bench players Indiana is most likely to see are Taison Chatman, Ivan Njegovan and Gabe Cupps.
The 6-foot-4 Chatman, a redshirt sophomore, is shooting 45.7 percent on 3s in 12.9 minutes per game off the bench.
Njegovan is a 7-foot-2, 260-pound sophomore from Croatia who shoots 57.4 percent on 2s and averages three points and 3.4 rebounds in 12.2 minutes per game.
And Cupps, who started his career at Indiana, averages 1.5 points, 1.2 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 12.8 minutes per game as a backup guard.
TEMPO-FREE PREVIEW
All stats are from conference games only and are updated through Thursday’s games.
Ohio State is explosive offensively, combining strong 3-point shooting with an ability to get to the line. The Buckeyes rank fourth in the Big Ten in 3-point shooting at 36.8 percent and have the league’s fourth-best free-throw rate (FTA/FGA) at 36 percent.
Defensively, the Buckeyes have some of the same holes as the Hoosiers. Ohio State is a below-average defensive rebounding team, allows a high opponent free-throw rate and doesn’t have great rim protection.
In Big Ten play, Ohio State’s efficiency margin is +3.8 points per 100 possessions and IU is +0.6 points per 100 possessions.
WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO
Ohio State has three home losses but should be considered a solid favorite entering Saturday’s game. The Buckeyes have been the better team in Big Ten play and are playing their best stretch of basketball this season.
The KenPom projection is Ohio State by five with a 33 percent chance of an IU upset. Bart Torvik projects a four-point Ohio State win with a 34 percent chance for the Hoosiers to prevail.
While Indiana played a solid game defensively against Minnesota, a road game against one of the Big Ten’s five best offenses is a major step up in competition. That’s what the Hoosiers will face against Ohio State, which has an excellent guard duo in Thornton and Mobley. Accounting for Royal, a polished scorer in the paint, could also be a problem.
The atmosphere in Columbus isn’t in the top half of the Big Ten, unlike the last two road contests at Purdue and Illinois. Indiana can’t afford to let both Mobley and Thornton get going offensively and will need one of its better 3-point shooting games of the season to emerge with a win.
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