What an interesting way to start the season, to say the least.
Ohio State beat IU Indy on the opening day of the college basketball season, but the Buckeyes allowed 102 points while doing so. It was the first time an OSU opponent scored 100 in regulation since a 100-65 loss to Maryland on Jan. 16, 2016.
On paper, allowing a program such as IU Indy to score 102 points in the season opener is, well, not good. But when you really break it down, it wasn't as bad as the final score might have shown.
Four-time Ohio State captain Bruce Thornton isn't worried, stating after the game that it's just some small details that the Buckeyes must fix moving forward.
"They have a lot of great shooters," he said of IU Indy. "They had a great offensive scheme. They had a lot of back-door cuts and some shooters who shot over 45% last year. Sometimes, we were overplaying. It was just little details that we have to make sure we tighten up and be a better defensive team."
Game 1 highlights#GoBucks pic.twitter.com/uNyDGfhGvf
— Ohio State Hoops (@OhioStateHoops) November 4, 2025
We break down how Ohio State's season-opening win over the Jaguars will likely be the type of game that the Buckeyes won't see again this season, or next season, or the season after that. It's that rare.
Ben Howlett's Past
The 38-year-old is in his first season leading IU Indy, his first job as a Division I basketball coach. That said, he has plenty of experience. After playing at West Liberty from 2005-09 and spending seven years as an assistant coach, he led his alma mater from 2017-25, a stretch where he went 217-37 as a head coach while winning seven MEC regular season titles and three conference tournament championships. Howlett was named the MEC Coach of the Year three times (2018, 2022 and 2025).
In 2024-25, Howlett's final season leading the Hilltoppers, they went 30-5 and scored 100-plus points in 17 games, including a 162-106 win in regulation. While the Marietta, Ohio native has a history of being a successful coach at the Division II level, he's hoping that success transitions to the top level of college basketball.
Part of that success has been that Howlett's teams love to run up and down the court all game, putting on a full-court press for 40 minutes and using the bulk of their depth and bench to remain as fresh as possible while doing so. Against Ohio State, nine IU Indy players played at least 14 minutes while six notched at least 20 minutes.
At the very least, Howlett will make sure that scoring and pace are mandatory, while defense might be optional at times.
The Pace
Given Howlett's past and the fact that Ohio State was expected to have a very good offense and questionable defense heading into this season, Monday night's game was always expected to be a high-scoring affair. Yet, somehow, no one could have projected that it would lead to 220 combined points.
While IU Indy scored 102, it was as much to do with the pace and not just OSU straight up allowing triple digits. Even then, though, center Christoph Tilly knows that the Buckeyes must improve defensively, even though the Santa Clara transfer is only one game into his Ohio State career.
"Defensively, we still have to work on some stuff, obviously," he said. "They scored over 100 points – that can't happen. We will keep working on that."
The Jaguars shot 50% from the field and 31.6% from beyond the arc, the former of which Jake Diebler knows that his team must improve on.
"The 50% stands out, and we only had six steals," Diebler said. "They made some midrange floaters in the paint over size that we challenged. They banked a couple in. Defensively, the field-goal percentage is obviously not good enough. We've got to get more deflections and be more active and pressure more defensively."
Nonetheless, IU Indy had 82 possessions and Ohio State had 80. Those 162 possessions in a 40-minute game mean that there was a new possession every 14.8 seconds. For comparison's sake, Alabama led the country with 78.5 possessions per game last season. The Buckeyes only averaged 71.8, the 96th-most in Division I.
OSU had a 67.3 adjusted tempo last season, which was 197th, according to KenPom. The Buckeyes had a 73.9 AdjT against IU Indy, which, stretched out to an entire year, would have been the fourth-highest last season, behind only Alabama, South Dakota, and Cal Poly.
It also didn't help that, in part due to the full-court pressure throughout the entire game, Ohio State had 17 turnovers (21.3% turnover rate), including 13 in the second half. IU Indy scored 19 points off those turnovers.
The good news is that the Buckeyes want to play fast this year, so this was a great way to start the season. Not only that, but it gave OSU a glimpse into the workload and stamina that it takes to run all game like that, especially while being pressured full court offensively throughout the entire game.
"I don't feel like the pace was too fast. It's almost like similar (to how we play in practice)," Thornton said. "It's just different when a team pressures like that, full court. It was definitely different, but it was fun, though. Especially a lot of possessions, it almost felt like an NBA game today."
Ohio State had a 101.4 adjusted defensive rating Monday night, according to KenPom. That would have ranked 74th in the country last season.
Late-Game Fouling
With 3:01 remaining in the game, Ohio State took a 110-93 lead following a Thornton 2-pointer. Most games, that 17-point lead with three minutes remaining would allow both teams to clear their respective benches.
But for IU Indy, they wanted more possessions (go figure, right?). In the game's final 2:34, each team had the ball five times for a total of 10 possessions. The Buckeyes scored eight points in the game's final 2:24, all of which came from made free throws. In fact, 15 of Ohio State's final 17 points came from free throws.
The bad news is that Ohio State gave up 102 points to IU Indy. The good news is the Buckeyes showed plenty of promise offensively while having plenty to learn from on the defensive side of the ball, and very likely won't face an opponent like that the rest of the season (and longer).
OSU will get an opportunity to improve on that defensive performance when it hosts Purdue Fort Wayne on Friday at 6:30 p.m. in Ohio State's second game of the season. The game will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network.
