Let's play a game.
It's the ol' "try and figure out the player based on their stats" game, and this time there's the added bonus of you trying to guess which of the following Ohio State men's basketball players spent the most time on the court per game for their respective teams.
PLAYER A
17.5 points per game, 9.2 rebounds per game, 1.2 assists per game, .519 field goal percentage
PLAYER B
20.4 points per game, 9.2 rebounds per game, 6.0 assists per game, .519 field goal percentage
PLAYER C
19.8 points per game, 5.9 rebounds per game, 1.3 assists per game, .444 field goal percentage
PLAYER D
19.3 points per game, 5.7 rebounds per game, 5.0 assists per game, .449 field goal percentage
PLAYER E
19.8 points per game, 8.7 rebounds per game, 1.6 assists per game, .480 field goal percentage
PLAYER F
19.9 points per game, 7.6 rebounds per game, 2.9 assists per game, .517 field goal percentage
Now, at this point you might be looking at these numbers and thinking "dammit Johnny, these are all the same player, it's Aaron Craft in each of his six years as a collegiate athlete." And while that's not a bad joke, I know that you're just covering for the fact that all of these statlines are virtually identical and there's no real way of discerning between any of them.
But for the record, in order, they are the best seasons for Jared Sullinger, Evan Turner, Deshaun Thomas, D'Angelo Russell, Keita Bates-Diop, and of course, E.J. Liddell's current 2021-22 campaign (Evan Turner, of course, averaged the most minutes played, but surprisingly Deshaun Thomas wasn't far behind him).
The point behind this little exercise is to illustrate that Ohio State men's basketball can't shake the often necessary hero ball that's become the M.O. for the Buckeyes over the past... well, forever. I'm cherry-picking players from the past decade or so, but you could just as easily find examples like this from the 90's or the 80's or even the 50's, when Robin Freeman averaged a ridiculous 32.9 points per game.
But it wasn't supposed to be this way for the 2021-22 Ohio State men's basketball team. Justice Sueing and Seth Towns were both expected to be significant contributors to a team that was already loaded on offense. Their absence from the court has helped make E.J. Liddell into a nationally recognized name, but it's taken me a long time to learn to love the idea that Liddell is the man for this season; that he's going to have to shoulder the same kind of responsibility that the likes of Turner and Sullinger had to in their Ohio State careers.
And ultimately, the real goal here is for a Chris Holtmann team to finally make a run in March. That's possible with an unbalanced team, but part of how likely you think it is for that to happen is how much faith you place in Liddell to pull off being a dominant March player.
The last time that Ohio State advanced to the third round of the NCAA Tournament was in 2013, where they eventually lost to Wichita State by a score of 70-66 in the Elite Eight. Deshaun Thomas dropped 21 points in that game, which was more than every other starter combined (including Amir Williams' zero points after 17 minutes on the court), as the magic ran out just before the Final Four.
The next year? LaQuinton Ross couldn't replicate Thomas' production, and scored only 10 points as Ohio State got bounced right out of the tournament by Dayton in the first round.
The Buckeyes have a lot of games to play between now and March Madness, but E.J. Liddell's time to shine will be upon us much more quickly than we expect. In a few short weeks, we'll know where his season stands among other Buckeye players who have had to carry their teams on broad shoulders.
