Ohio State is brimming with confidence but not satisfied heading into its home opener against Youngstown State on Monday in Columbus, Ohio.
Defeating No. 19 Texas 80-72 in Las Vegas on Nov. 4 helped validate the Buckeyes’ preseason preparation, but coach Jake Diebler wants his team to focus on improving every game.
“When things are going bad, it’s easy to say, ‘Don’t listen to that, don’t look at this.’ I think it’s just as important when it’s going good,” he said. “A really good win against a really good team, but we didn’t play perfect by any means.”
Diebler is in his first full campaign as head coach for Ohio State after replacing the fired Chris Holtmann on Feb. 14. Diebler went 8-3 as the Buckeyes’ interim head coach last season.
Sharp 3-point shooting was key for Ohio State (1-0) against the Longhorns. The Buckeyes shot 14-of-28 from distance, 50 percent clip they surpassed only four times last season.
“We really just want to get a good look,” Diebler said. “We want to play with an aggressiveness and confidence to take the first good look we can get.”
Youngstown State’s Ethan Faulkner won his head coaching debut for the Penguins (1-0) with an 80-60 victory at Chicago State on Saturday.
Faulkner was the associate head coach the past two seasons after three as an assistant coach at Youngstown State.
It was a delayed start of the season for the Penguins because the originally scheduled opener against Westminster on Nov. 4 was postponed due to a power outage on the Youngstown State campus.
The Penguins have won 20 games in consecutive seasons, but Faulkner has only three returning letterwinners and knows his team is a work in progress.
“We are certainly making progress, but I think we need to continue to improve in all areas,” Faulkner told the Tribune Chronicle.
“When you recruit the way that we have recruited, and really just the day and age of college basketball we’re in, you don’t always have a lot of continuity as you bring new people in. It just takes time to get everybody on the same page.”
–Field Level Media
