Last year
20-12 overall, 8-8 in conference. (Due to self-imposed sanctions, Ohio State was ineligible for postseason play last year.)

Back
Terence Dials (15.9 PPG, 1.18 PPWS, 14.6 reb. pct., 1.6 assists per 100 possessions)
J.J. Sullinger (9.7 PPG, 1.20 PPWS, 12.3 reb. pct., 3.7 a/100 poss.)
Matt Sylvester (8.0 PPG, 1.09 PPWS, 7.4 reb. pct., 5.3 a/100 poss.)
Je'Kel Foster (7.7 PPG, 1.20 PPWS, 7.6 reb. pct., 5.7 a/100 poss.)
Ivan Harris (7.3 PPG, 1.19 PPWS, 9.9 reb. pct., 2.1 a/100 poss.)
Jamar Butler (3.6 PPG, 0.93 PPWS, 5.7 reb. pct., 7.3 a/100 poss.)
Matt Terwilliger (1.5 PPG)

New
Ron Lewis (6-4 G, transfer from Bowling Green--17.0 PPG in 2003-04)
Sylvester Mayes (6-1 G, JC transfer)
Brayden Bell (6-8 C, Salt Lake City)

Gone
Tony Stockman (12.0 PPG, 1.02 PPWS, 4.9 reb. pct., 5.2 a/100 poss.)
Brandon Fuss-Cheatham (5.1 PPG, 0.92 PPWS, 5.5 reb. pct. 8.5 a/100 poss.)
Matt Marinchick (1.1 PPG)

Official motto for 2005-06
"Enjoy us not dominating you for one last year."

What we think we know in November
On Wednesday Greg Oden signed his letter of intent to play at Ohio State starting next year. For those who've been trapped at the bottom of a well in Ulan Bator for the past 20 months, the relevant sound bites on Oden once again are: only player besides LeBron James ever to be named national POY as a high school junior; reputed to be the most dominant player to enter college since Lew Alcindor arrived at UCLA in 1965.

So Wonk's going to take a risk and offer my 2007 preview of the Buckeyes right here. It consists of one word (insert throat-clearing sound-effect here):

Eep.

Which is to say this year should provide the basis for lots of graphics on broadcasts of Ohio State games in 2007--tables and charts on "Oden's Impact" and the weird and quaint pre-Oden stats from 2006. What do we think those 2006 stats will look like....

Truly a POT's POT
Ohio State was a three-point-shooting team last year...the only problem being they didn't shoot threes very well.

The Buckeyes were tops in the Big Ten in the frequency with which they launched threes (40 percent of their shots were from beyond the arc in conference play) but just ninth (!) in the conference in 3FG pct.

In this Thad Matta's team reminded your intrepid blogger a little of NBA stalwart Antoine Walker, the career .326 shooter from beyond the arc who nevertheless jacks up a ton of the things. In fact, Walker is said to have responded as follows when asked why he shoots so many threes: "Because there are no fours."

The good news for fans in Columbus is that Tony Stockman is gone. Without Stockman launching 136 bricks from beyond the arc (that's over four a game, people), the Buckeyes' proficiency from the outside figures to improve markedly.

It will have to. How well they shoot from outside will be crucial for Ohio State this year. Wonk is making the following assumption about this year's team: that they will, like last year, be a POT (perimeter-oriented team). This means Ohio State will: a) shoot a lot of threes; b) give opponents next to no turnovers; and c) perform very badly on the offensive glass. A, B, and C describe last year's Buckeyes to a T.

The wild card in the equation is how many of those threes go in. If 41 percent of them go in you look like Illinois. If only 33 percent of them go in you look like Ohio State.

Granted, there are other wild cards this year. Maybe Bowling Green transfer Ron Lewis will add more of a slashing dimension to the offense and take some pressure off the outside shooters by getting to the line a lot. Still, on a team with the likes of Je'Kel Foster, J.J. Sullinger, and Ivan Harris, Wonk expects to see some threes.

Buckeye D very good--what's up with that?
Canonical blogger Ryan Kobliska has rightly pointed out the Buckeyes' single most striking statistical anomaly last year: the extreme infrequency with which their opponents attempted three-pointers.

Wonk's theory (emphasis on the word theory) is that this lack of attempted threes by opponents may have been due to a remarkably uniform consensus among 10 other Big Ten coaches on how best to attack Ohio State: go right at Dials and get him tired or in foul trouble or both. There is abundant backcourt depth in Columbus but there is zero frontcourt depth. If you can neutralize Dials, the book says, you can have your way with the Buckeye defense.

That being said, we must also add that opponents following the chapter and verse of said book didn't do all that well against a surprisingly stingy Ohio State defense, one that ranked fourth in the league last year behind Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan State. The strength of said D was its field goal defense, a category where the Buckeyes were second only to the Golden Gophers. Was this systemic (a Matta-brand of lock-down D) or something closer to luck? Wonk inclines a little toward the latter (can a team whose "big man" is 6-9 really sustain this level of field goal defense?) but we'll find out one way or the other this year.

You irreplaceable you....
Throw a stick at the bench in Columbus and you'll hit about 11 guys between 6-3 and 6-8 who like to shoot threes--but there's only one (proven) beast down low and that is Terence Dials. The big guy's not much of a free throw shooter but pretty much everything else you get from Dials is choice. Efficient scoring plus solid rebounding and a low turnover rate equals a guy any coach would love to have in the post.

Except for the aforementioned FT issues, Dials' numbers have all trended steeply upward from year to year during his career in Columbus, one that has spanned two coaches with very different offensive systems. Adaptable and productive stalwart Terence Dials, Wonk salutes you!

Is Ron Lewis the Vincent Grier of 2006?
Probably not. For one thing Bowling Green transfer Ron Lewis has already received much more ink than Grier had at this time a year ago. Still, the similarities are intriguing: both are big-ish guards who don't pose much of a threat from the outside but who penetrate, get to the line a lot, and (Lewis especially) drain the freebies with admirable accuracy.

Lewis started and scored 20 points in the Buckeyes' first exhibition game on Sunday. OSU is loaded in the backcourt this year.

He's a combination 4 and a 2--he's a 6!
Wonk's been a fan of J.J. Sullinger for a while now because the 6-5 Buckeye simply refuses to be categorized. Alert readers of this blog have probably noticed, for example, that Wonk has from time to time used Sullinger as a kind of classroom ruler to rap across the knuckles of much taller but poorer-rebounding types like Northwestern's Mike Thompson or Indiana's D.J. White. In the Buckeyes strictly 1-4 offensive set last year, Sullinger indeed operated as Terence Dials' only (and Wonk means only) help on the boards.

But wait! There's more! Sullinger shot .446 on his threes last year and is just plan efficient in his scoring. And he never (Wonk means never) turns the ball over. Man. Wonk likey....

(OK, OK, equal time: like Dials, Sullinger's an adventure every time at the line. Duly noted. I still dig him.)

Hey, kids! He's just the same but with a whacked-out name!
Take Wonk's passage above on J.J. Sullinger, take out the praise for the rebounding, and--voila!--you have a pretty good thumbnail description of Je'Kel Foster. Like his teammate, the 6-3 Foster is deadly from the outside, efficient in his scoring, admirably careful with the ball, and thoroughly worrisome at the line. Foster will likely start the season as Thad Matta's primary outside threat.

All you need to know about Matt Sylvester
Wonk went to Illinois. Therefore Matt Sylvester is the devil. (Sounds of uncontrollable sobbing and wall-pounding....)

OK...(sniff), Wonk is better now. In addition to being the devil, the 6-7 Sylvester's a welcome dose of mid-sized human on a team that needs it. He stands out from his mates in that he dishes assists and he's over 70 percent at the line.

Etc.
Ivan Harris looks to be this year's first guy off the bench for Matta. A couple days ago Wonk called Minnesota's Dan Coleman a "finesse power forward." Ditto Harris: a 6-8 guy with excellent three-point range (and thus a correspondingly gaudy PPWS). Longtime readers of Wonk will recall, however, that Harris apparently has an Eric Lidell-style religious objection to shooting free throws, a noble stand chronicled in this space last year under the hackishly give-me-a-Pulitzer title, First of a Five-Part Series: Ivan Harris's Remarkable No-Free-Throw Streak.

The aforementioned blogger Ryan Kobliska has already described Jamar Butler perfectly so allow Wonk to merely parrot: Butler is Drew Neitzel. The youth, quickness, ability to distribute, questionable D, woeful (as yet) outside shot--it's all there.

Sylvester Mayes is a juco transfer with a rep for quickness and hitting threes. He will have to be long on both skills to crack this lineup.

--article reprinted with permission of the author