Basketball Preview: Ohio State Aims For First Big Ten Win With Rutgers Coming To Town

The way head coach Steve Pikiell has things rolling, though, has put that idea into the past.

"Rutgers is off to a great start, as expected," head coach Chris Holtmann said on Tuesday. "A top-15 team in the country."

Two of those words – "as expected" – tell the whole story. After last season, which would have ended with the No. 11 Scarlet Knights' first NCAA tournament appearance since 1991, it's no longer a surprise that they could finish in the top half of the Big Ten. As No. 23 Ohio State (6-1, 0-1) will see first-hand when the two teams meet at the Schottenstein Center at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Scarlet Knights (6-0) are legit.

They've opened the season by rattling off six straight wins, opening some eyes over the past couple of weeks.

After topping three straight low-major opponent by double figures, they handed Syracuse, Maryland and Illinois – the preseason Big Ten favorite – losses consecutively. Their 91-88 victory versus the Illini on Sunday propelled them up this week's rankings and will have them still undefeated when they take the court at the Schottenstein Center with Ohio State looking for its first in-conference win this season.

"This is a tremendous Rutgers team," Holtmann said. "Deep, balanced, really well-coached, and they've got a lot of returning guys and some guys that are emerging in terms of all-conference players. Obviously Geo was, I believe, a preseason pick, as was maybe Ron Harper. A lot of guys that have been together."

Three Things To Watch

The Ron Harper Jr. Show, Featuring Jacob Young

In the preseason poll conducted jointly by The Athletic and Columbus Dispatch, only one Scarlet Knights player earned all-conference team votes: senior guard Geo Baker.

As it turns out, he hasn't even been one of the two most productive players on his own team thus far. Those honors go to junior guard/forward Ron Harper Jr. (6-foot-6, 245 pounds) and senior guard Jacob Young (6-foot-2, 185 pounds).

"Those two guys, along with Geo Baker, have been outstanding for them," Holtmann said.

Harper, with his uncommon size, has turned himself into one of the better players in the Big Ten. Through six games, he's averaging 24 points per game, the second-most of any player in the conference, while shooting 60 percent from the floor and 52.5 percent on 6.7 3-point attempts per game. He's getting to the foul line four times a game, too. Yet despite all of the time spent with the ball in his hands, he has turned it over just five times in 195 minutes.

When it comes to Rutgers' offense, the focus begins with Harper who has the 26th-best effective field-goal percentage of any player in the country (71.7 percent).

"I think what you've seen right now is he's a gifted athlete and he's got a huge frame," Holtmann said. "Really big frame. There's no question he's a bona-fide NBA prospect. There's no question in my mind. He's certainly one of the best players in our league right now, there's no question. He's a mismatch challenge. He's a terrific challenge."

Young, a former Texas transfer in his second season playing for Rutgers, has turned into a quality scorer to supplement Harper. He has averaged 16.5 points – while shooting 48.1 percent from the floor – and 5.7 assists in 34.5 minutes per game. 

Of note: Harper (21-of-40) and Young (6-of-14) are the only two players on their team shooting at least 30 percent from behind the 3-point arc. Rutgers, which is 32nd nationally with a 2-point percentage of 56.9, does a lot of its work from inside the arc. But when the Scarlet Knights let it fly, they're most dangerous when Harper and Young get shots off.

In The Middle?

Rutgers already plays a small rotation. Four players – Harper, Young, Montez Mathis and Paul Mulcahy – average at least 30 minutes per game, and three others have been on the court for 18 minutes per game or more. Instead of the typical seven-man rotation, however, Pikiell will have to adjust on Wednesday.

Starting center Cliff Omouryi suffered a sprained knee and is out indefinitely, per the Asbury Park Press. That will keep him sidelined for the Ohio State-Rutgers matchup.

Omouryi, a top-50 recruit in the 2020 cycle and the second-highest-rated Rutgers signee ever, had started every game. In his place will be Myles Johnson, a 6-foot-11, 255-pound junior who has recorded 8.7 points, 9.7 rebounds and 2.7 blocks in 22 minutes per game off of the bench this season. Big and physical, he'll be a challenge for Kyle Young and Zed Key to deal with on a play-to-play basis and has shown an ability to alter shots at a high level.

"Myles Johnson has tremendous size," Holtmann said. "He's an older player. He's a really, really effective big in our league. He doesn't get talked about enough."

Eyes In The Backcourt

All the time, Holtmann says that Ohio State's best players need to play well for this team to achieve what it's aiming to do. So often, that statement is directed toward the backcourt where upperclassmen CJ Walker and Duane Washington Jr. reside as starters.

Against a physical, tough-minded Rutgers team, the Buckeyes will need those two at their best. The Scarlet Knights will throw Young, Mathis and Baker at them.

Washington, in particular, hasn't been efficient enough as a scorer through seven games. That word gets tossed around with him a lot, but it's for good reason. He's shooting only 36 percent from the field and has yet to top 45 percent shooting in a single game thus far. He was 4-for-14 in the Big Ten opener at Purdue and went 4-for-12 the next game against UCLA. Even from the outside, he hasn't been particularly deadly, hitting 34.7 percent of his seven 3-point attempts per game.

"We've got to help him improve his efficiency, there's no question," Holtmann said. "We've got to help him do that. But he's got to improve his efficiency. He's got to become a more efficient offensive player. There's no question that those numbers need to improve."

And for Ohio State to beat Rutgers this week, they might need to improve with haste.

Prediction: Ohio State 70, Rutgers 69