Beavs headed to the Sanford Pentagon in November

Huh. Never heard of it. Guess it beats the Stanford Rectangle.

According to D1 Docket. Beavs will also be playing November 22 and 24 in Brooklyn NY. According to the D1 docket website, I did some digging and found that Florida, Pitt and Baylor are also playing those days. That site is pretty accurate when it comes to Non Conference Schedules in Basketball. Heres the link.


d1docket.blogspot.com/p/2022-23-conference-dockets.html?m=1

Getting in some good tougher games in preseason will be good experience for our young team, we're essentially loaded with true sophmores. A strnger early schedule couldpotentiallypay off dividends later.

I'm reminded of the young '78 Beavers team that started off playing some strong ACC teams and was 0 and 4, ended up placing 2nd in the Pac that year. We probably don’t have a Steve Johnson type center (assuming Ibekwe doesn't make an abnormally fast gain in skill level, I think by 2024/2025 he could be a consustent force) just yet but we have a few young kids at the other positions that could potentially match what surrounded him.

I watched nearly every home game between 76 and 80 except for those during the first two Christmas breaks. That was the time of my life my "fanship" of OSU sports blossomed. Those kids are who I generally use as my baseline when comparing players at OSU.

Rataj and Bilodeau both can be more consequetial to the program, in a good way, than Stout, Allen and Martin were. They were both ahead of any of the early output of those three. Allen is one of my favorite players here of all time... I like kids who play good D position and are willing to take a charge (part of the reason I liked Riechle a couple years back). They will score more than him, will they defend to his level? Hard to say. Are they the next Sitton? Likely not, but Rataj has shown flashes of moving better than Sitton and Bilodeau is every bit the gritty player that Sitton was.

I already said Ibekwe wasn't a Steve Johnson. We haven't had a center of Johnson's level since. We've had a few very good ones, and I think Ibekwe has a lot of potential, maybe not top 5 in the last 50 years, but I can't say yet he won't be one of the top 5. I think he will become more consequential than Martin, who was one of the best (if not the best) backup centers we've had here in that time. OSU was blessed with post play those years, it made the team click and made it easier for the other players to "shine". Not having that type of post man now makes things harder for everyone. We were getting roughly 30 pointsa game out of the post position in the late 70's. I think it's unrealistic to get that now unless we land an all-American, I'd be good with 14-18 and solid D out of the position, I'm hopeful that can happen.

Pope already was ahead of the freshmen versions of Blume and Radford. I wouldn't put him in Gary Payton senior's league, but few in college history can match Payton, but assuming Pope continues to improve, he could be a very significant guard in OSU's history. Will he be better than those two were their junior and senior years? Hard to say, but one can hope. Blume and Radford became defensive stalwarts here, that's a lot to live up to.

Right now I'm comparing freshman year to freshman year, not freshman year against soph/junior/senior years.

In my ideal world one if our two bigs comes in this fall and is balls out the best post man we've had since Johnson. If that happens this team could be quite good this year.

The team needs a couple of pieces to match the best teams of the late 70's and early 80's, but it's not without potential.

Different era and none, zero of the aforementioned '23 roster could play for Ralph let alone be compared legitimately to that team.

Might be the largest leap ever on this board trying to... what? Elevate what is a low level Pac12 roster.

Crazy crazy crazy.

I was not implying we have a Steve Johnson type. I said Ibekwe could be pretty good for us in 2 years.

We'll see how these kids look in 2-3 years. Last year's group was a low level Pac 12 roster with a lot of youth.

If all 4 of the kids I mentioned are still here in 2 and 3 seasons, do you still think they'll be a low level Pac12 (or however many schools we have then) roster?

If you think all of those earlier kids were finished products their freshman years YOU are crazy crazy crazy.

Too bad you and all of your previous identities weren't here a couple years back to explain how a coach, who can't coach, can't develop, and can't recruit, can take a group of kids in his charge to the Elite 8. You haven't ever explained how that doesn't jibe with any of your proclamations of the last several years.

Except for Johnson, none of that young group was all league level early on. Blume made it in years 3 and 4 in the program, Radford in year 4. I highly suspect Pope will get there at some point. The others may not, but I bet they'll improve and be competitive despite what you say.