There are a bunch of old Buckeyes teams to choose from.
Big news: EA Sports confirmed reporting this week that a college basketball game is in the works: the first since 2010. Land-Grant Holy Land alum Matt Brown, the author of the Extra Points newsletter, broke the news first, and also reported that the game would be released in 2028.
To this point, EA Sports has not confirmed when the highly anticipated game will be released. The release date being three years down the road certainly bursted people’s bubble a little bit, but it is still exciting to know that college basketball will be back on game systems soon.
Last week, Connor and Justin debated which high school recruit Ohio State should prioritize next. With Dorian Jones de-committing from the 2025 class in June, Ohio State now has zero high school commits in the last nine months — the most recent was A’mare Bynum in October 2024, who is now on campus with the team as a freshman.
In a landslide vote, 83% of readers agreed with Justin last week, who picked Anthony Thompson, the No. 11 player in the nation, per 247Sports. 9% of readers agreed with Connor, who wants to see Ohio State pursue a possible legacy Buckeye in Jason Singleton. The remaining 8% believe Jake Diebler and his and his staff should be pursuing someone else.
After 211 weeks:
Connor- 95
Justin- 90
Other- 20
(There have been six ties)
We’re both giddy for EA Sports to come out with a college basketball video game, even if it’s a few years down the road. Aside from taking a mid-major nobody to the Final Four, playing with Ohio State is obviously the best thing you can do in that game.
With that established, which Ohio State team would be the most fun to play as? Since the last college basketball video game came out in 2009, we are only talking about the teams since that game came out. Ohio State teams from 2010 to 2025 are eligible for this, since none of them have been in a college basketball game.
This week’s question: Which old Ohio State team would be the most fun to play as in a college basketball video game?
Connor: The 2011-12 team
Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
Sure, I’ll play with the best Ohio State team of the past 15 years. A share of the Big Ten title, a 31-8 record, an All-American, and two other guys who scored at least 14 points per game. Sounds like a good time to me.
Jared Sullinger was an All-American that year, averaging 17.5 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. Deshaun Thomas, who would take over as the go-to guy one year later, averaged 15.9 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. In his senior season, William Buford averaged 14.5 points and five rebounds per game.
As a team, Ohio State was the second highest-scoring team in the Big Ten at 75 points per game. The Buckeyes had the second highest shooting percentage in the Big Ten at 47.9%. They were also the second-best rebounding team in the conference, averaging 36.8 boards per game, with seven different players averaging at least two rebounds per game.
Even thought we didn’t pay much attention to KenPom back then, the Buckeyes were a very well-balanced team under the analytical microscope. Thanks in large part to guards Aaron Craft and Lenzelle Smith Jr., Ohio State was No. 4 in defensive efficiency that season. They were also No. 6 in offensive efficiency, thanks to the scoring trio I noted above.
More than anything, it would be fun to play with the Sullinger-Thomas combination. As far as sidekicks go, there haven’t been many better than Thomas was to Sullinger over the past 20 years in the Big Ten. If opponents try to double-team Sullinger, Thomas is great as a No. 2, and would’ve been the go-to guy on a lot of teams that season.
Justin: The 2014-15 team
Barbara J. Perenic / USA TODAY NETWORK
When it comes to playing as a certain team in a video game, playing as the 2014-15 Ohio State men’s basketball team would be a ton of fun.
Let’s start with the star of the team D’Angelo Russell, who led the loaded 2014 recruiting class to Columbus (Russell, Jae’Sean Tate, Keita Bates-Diop, and Kam Williams). Russell was the No. 2 pick in the upcoming NBA Draft after averaging 19.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game. He was fun to watch every single game, and was a human highlight reel and would be exciting to play with in a video game.
Sam Thompson was the second leading scorer for the season at 10.2 points and 3.9 rebounds per game, but everyone that has watched Ohio State basketball when Thompson was there knows why he would be fun to play with in a video game: Posters every game.
Jae’Sean Tate was the third best player on the team and second best freshman on the team. Marc Loving, Shannon Scott, Amit Williams, Kam Williams, and Keita Bates-Diop rounded out the contributors, and all have something unique about them that would be fun to use and play around with the different rotations as a unit that had solid depth.
This was also one of the best scoring teams the Buckeyes had in recent years. This team averaged 75.3 points per game, which was good for 26th out of 351 teams. That is another fun thing to play with on a video game.
This is not the best Ohio State team of the past two decades, but it was one of the more exciting ones with some of the best players.