With November approaching, the men’s basketball season is even closer to beginning a new chapter in the second year of the Jim Christian era.
The departure of five seniors has welcomed an array of new faces, and Ohio has turned the page quickly to prepare for a difficult series of non-conference opponents.
After an exhibition game on Nov. 2 against Ashland, the Bobcats will host their regular season opener a week later against Northern Iowa, which has finished with a winning record every year for the past decade.
Three days after that matchup, Ohio will head north to Columbus to play Ohio State, which is predicted to be a top-10 opponent.
“I think the mindset (with Ohio State) is just going there and playing basketball,” junior guard Stevie Taylor said. “We don’t want to come in over-thinking things. We think that coach will prepare us well for both of those games. Starting with our mindset, we have to play tough.”
And playing tough has been apparent in preseason action with positions unassigned and practice essentially a try-out for players competing for a starting role and court time.
“If you want to start, I want you to start, but you better go compete because someone else wants it,” Christian said. “At the end of the day, they realize that our strength is numbers. Our strength is our depth. We’re fortunate that we have a lot of guys who can swing games.”
The tenacity reserved for the regular season has become apparent in preseason action thus far, with players ensuing positions with relative uncertainty.
“Every day we come out here, it’s like a dogfight, it’s like we’re playing football on a basketball court,” junior forward Maurice Ndour said. “Guys are just trying to get better and compete for playing time.”
Nonetheless, with most of the starting lineup from last season graduated, veterans and new players alike are competing while also becoming a cohesive unit.
Striving to gain every bit out of practice, Taylor sees his competition with junior guard Javarez “Bean” Willis for the starting point guard role as a chance to make them both better players.
“With us competing, it’s going to make us better,” Taylor said. “We’re both going to play — that’s not what we’re worried about. Whatever we need to do, what coach wants us to do, we have to do that in order to be out there on the court.”
With his first year under his belt, Christian has more of an ability to shape his players’ roles on the court, especially with a wave of new key players.
“Last year, we had those seniors so it was tough to get them to buy in to what [coach] was doing,” Taylor said. “But with our younger guys, and now that we’re older and it’s his second season, it can only help us out if we pay attention to what he’s talking about.”
ch115710@ohiou.edu
@ColinHanner
