Ohio State Needs To Send the Big Ten a Message By Beating Michigan State

Ohio State is one of those teams where you don’t know what they’re going to bring to the table when March Madness comes rolling around. Are they going to make a deep run? Are they going to get upset by a team they should run out of the gym due to lapses of concentration and execution? I personally think they’re a good basketball team, but I feel like the coming game against the Michigan State Spartans is going to be insanely huge for Ohio State.

Michigan State is ranked 7 spots lower than Ohio currently, but they’re playing good basketball themselves. The Big 10 is one heck of a conference this year and most have counted Ohio State out from actually winning the conference. Walking into the house of Michigan State and whooping them could be one of those wins that catapult a good team into the ranks of great ones. A loss is going to bring up those same criticisms I talked about earlier. Can Ohio State put together 40 minutes of good basketball against a good team when it counts?

The key to that game is going to be Aaron Craft. He’s a JR guard and the facilitator of the offense, and needs to make sure he gets Deshaun Thomas the ball. He needs to push the tempo, and he needs to limit his turnovers. If he can do that against the stifling “green” defense of Tom Izzo, they can be successful.

Look, Ohio State has quality wins for sure, but this is a game where I think they can hang their hat on. We’ll see what happens, but I look forward to this matchup.