NCDS: Jeff Boals, Asst. Coach - Ohio State

By: Jeff Boals, Asst. Coach - Ohio State

The season is in full swing! There has been a lot that has happened in the past month since I last wrote.

We are currently 5-1 and ranked 16th in the country. Our lone loss is to a good (then No. 4 ranked) North Carolina team in New York City during the 2K Sports Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer. We started out very slow in that game and finished with a flourish. The loss was by 4 points but we learned from it and bounced back the next night to beat then #12 ranked California by 6 points.  Playing in Madison Square Garden is something all our players will talk about for a long time! I was fortunate enough myself to play there in the Preseason NIT back in 1994 and still remember it like it was yesterday.

November brought us some great team play and fantastic individual play.  Evan Turner produced only the second and third triple-doubles in school history! He has since gone over the 1,000-point mark in our last game, one of 44 players in Ohio State history to do so.  Many of our guys have set career high in points in a game and Jon Diebler climbed to No. 2 all-time in 3-pointers made in a career.

We feel like we are doing some really good things right now on the basketball court.  Our guys are playing unselfish basketball and understanding what it takes to win. Two areas we have stressed in the preseason are rebounding and our passing. So far, so good.   Our rebounding numbers are up, as well as our assist to turnover ratio.

This month starts a new challenge for us beginning with the Big Ten/ACC challenge. We are the last game in the series, this Wednesday night December 2 against a very good Florida State team who just won the Old Spice Classic in Orlando, Florida. Florida State is a lot like North Carolina in terms of size and length.  They are one of the best defensive teams in the country! 

We play seven total games this month, including a game at Butler on the 12th.  The end of the month will usher in the start of the Big Ten season at Wisconsin, one of the toughest places to play in the Big Ten. We are the only team in the league that has four of the first five league games on the road!  It will be a big challenge, but our guys will be up for it.

We also welcomed six new Buckeyes "officially" to our Ohio State basketball family! Jared Sullinger, Deshaun Thomas, Jordan Sibert, Lenzelle Smith, Aaron Craft and JD Weatherspoon signed their National Letters of Intent on November 11. These six gave us arguably the No. 1 ranked recruiting class in the country.  We are ecstatic to add not only great basketball players to our team but great high character kids to the university.

We are excited about where we are and even more excited about where we can be. It will be a daily thing to stay hungry and focused. Part of being a great team is handling not only adversity but prosperity as well.

Congratulations to Coach Tressel and the football team for winning their fifth Big Ten championship in a row. (How has he not been Coach of the Year any of those five years??) Also congratulations to men's soccer on its Big Ten regular-season and tournament championships and the No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, as well as the women's volleyball, women's soccer and field hockey for making the NCAA Tournament.

Happy Holidays to everyone.

Go Bucks!!