So about this whole Big Ten situation, maybe it’s not just Purdue and Michigan State. There seems to be a new player in this, and it’s Ohio State. At the beginning of the season, many projected the Buckeyes to finish between 10th and 13th in the Big Ten. Sure, they brought in a good new coach, Chris Holtmann, but they also lost a ton of talent from transfers the last couple years and had a less than stellar recruiting class. Sure enough, here they are, sitting at 6-0 in conference play, with Purdue atop the conference standings, at least 2 games ahead of the rest of the competition. Let’s look if they actually have a chance to do this thing.

Yes, I am aware ESPN sucks and BPI is terrible, but if we are to take it into account at all for you ESPN fans out there, Ohio State is favored in all but 3 remaining games, at Purdue, at Penn State, and at Michigan. The bottom 5 in the Big Ten is Illinois, Iowa, Rutgers, Minnesota, and Northwestern, and Ohio State has games remaining against all of those teams. Typically, you could be worried about them choking in those, but this year Ohio State has been pretty good at handling competition that is seemingly inferior, such as the recent blowout wins over Rutgers and Maryland.

In addition to those, they have a home and home with both Penn State and Indiana on their schedules, and while those teams aren’t conference bottom feeders, they aren’t exactly the gauntlet of opponents like Purdue and Michigan State would be. They do not play Michigan State again this season, after upsetting them when they were the number one team in the country. So if the Buckeyes end up tying with the Spartans, Ohio State owns that tiebreaker. They play Michigan once more, but, just like in football, Ohio State beat Michigan earlier this year in basketball. They only have one game against Purdue this year and its one that could very well decide the Big Ten regular season champion. Purdue will be heavy favorites in that game, but it is college basketball and anything is possible.

After taking a look at their schedule, let’s look at their actual team and how they’ve managed to overcome expectations this year. You cannot talk about Buckeye basketball without talking about the one they call KBD, Keita Bates-Diop. He was the biggest snub from ESPN Wooden Award watch list as he is most certainly one of the front runners for Big Ten Player of the Year. He is putting up numbers similar to Ohio State great Evan Turner from his Player of the Year season. He’s averaging a conference best 20.3 PPG, while adding on 8.8 rebounds and shooting 53% from the floor. For reference, that is the  highest he has ever had in his career.

They also have some key pieces around KBD. They have two guys in CJ Jackson and Kam Williams who are capable of spreading the floor and splashing some 3’s whenever they’re needed. They have a guy in Jae’Sean Tate who is a little hard to gauge. He’s 6’4, but plays like a big at times, as he’s tough on the inside, and the man has a motor like no one has seen since Aaron Craft. Buckeye fans love him and his motor as it is a polar opposite from the likes of Amir Williams and Marc Loving that Buckeyes fans have seen in recent years. They have a young big man in Kaleb Wesson who has really been coming into his own lately and has provided valuable minutes down low for the Buckeyes. There’s also grad transfer Andrew Dakich who has been a spark of life off the bench for Holtmann’s squad this year. Overall, the Buckeyes have really gelled together this year and they’re looking like they could be a very dangerous team, not just in the conference, but in the country.