NCAA Basketball: Villanova, Gonzaga headline early 2020-21 rankings

Ohio State experienced a bit of an up-and-down campaign in 2019-20. The Buckeyes launched off to an incredibly hot start early in the year before suffering six losses in seven games to fall out of the national rankings. Down the stretch, though, head coach Chris Holtmann’s team regained its prior level of play to win nine of its final 12 games in Big Ten play. The Buckeyes finished the season ranked at No. 8 on KenPom and are returning a fair amount of talent (as well as an excellent head coach) for this coming campaign.

Andre Wesson, Alonzo Gaffney, and D.J. Carton are already leaving Columbus this offseason and it also feels as though Kaleb Wesson will remain in the NBA Draft. Even with those departures, though, Coach Holtmann has enough talent to replace those pieces and he should be given the benefit of the doubt considering his recent track record of success.

Most notably, Ohio State is returning Luther Muhammad, Duane Washington, C.J. Walker, and Kyle Young as potential starters for this coming campaign. All four of them averaged at least 22 minutes per game in 2019-20 and will be guiding forces once again for Coach Holtmann. Let’s also not overlook the massive ceiling of E.J. Liddell.

In terms of newcomers, it is impossible to overlook that Ohio State is adding Justice Sueing (14.3p/6.0r for Cal for in ’18-19) and Seth Towns (16.0p/5.7r for Harvard in ’17-18) to the rotation. Both are proven talents that should slide into major roles either in the starting lineup or off the bench.

Ohio State’s recruiting class then includes a sharpshooting wing in Eugene Brown (No. 113) and a versatile forward in Zed Key (No. 154). These are talented players even if they might be stars right away.