BONUS: Amare Bynum Is Back!

Hey, I'll Tony Gurderman here, get a bonus episode for you.

This is from the latest Buck Eyes tomorrow morning, reaching time more and myself talking

about the huge news that I'm already buying them is coming back next year.

Not a surprise, not a surprise, but certainly instrumental in any kind of chance the

Buck Eyes have of making the tournament once again next year.

So here it is.

Give it a listen.

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Welcome to Buck Eyes tomorrow morning for Tuesday, March 31st, on your host, Tom Or the

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Alright, brace yourselves.

It's another basketball show.

I don't know.

We are going just crazy here on the Buck Eyes tomorrow morning podcast, but yesterday we

did a show on the departure of Devon Royale entering the transfer portal.

Today doing a show on a player who is coming back.

This is one of these things that would not have been news a few years ago, but now very

newsworthy that M.A.R.I.

Venom is coming back for his second year at Ohio State.

Less newsworthy.

I'm joined once again by Tony Grittlement of Buck Eyes Huddle.com.

I mean, it just means because you're here a lot, not because it's not mean.

I'm just, you know, odds are more often than not.

It's going to be Tony.

It is once again, Tony.

We talked at the end of the season about the fact that, boy, Amari Biden had done enough

that it was like, oh, boy, it just got more expensive to retain him.

But he might have been number one on the list of guys they had to bring back this year.

Yeah, I think, and I tweeted this after Ohio State lost to TCU and the NCAA tournament.

Like, I will determine if the season is a success on whether or not Amari Biden is

back.

If they can retain him, then that means the season ends in a better way.

And, you know, the season only ends with a win for so many teams and the ones that really

wanted only ends for in a win for one team.

So this is a win for Ohio State to get Amari Biden back because there were, there were

stretches towards the postseason and into postseason where he looked like he was arguably

the best player or you certainly see that he has the most upside of anybody on the roster.

And you can see that upside over the course of the season, whether it's grabbing a rebound,

going coast to coast and being able to finish or the help side defense blocking shots.

You know, I've had people tell me, well, he needs to shoot better.

It's like, well, he's already shooting, he's shot like 31% from 3, which is, you know,

again, he's 68 to 40, right?

That's a better percentage than John Debel or shot as a true freshman.

This game will develop.

And I always say for young guys, for big guys, the fact that they're shooting threes means

that they can hit him.

So whether or not they hit him, that's certainly you want to want them to.

But they have that skill set.

So it's not something that you have to teach him.

He's got all of these skill sets.

And now he's going to be back and, you know, they lose Devon Royal, but this kind of opens

things up more for Murray, Bynam to be really one of their top two options offensively,

I think next year.

And so you can kind of check that box.

Now I think next up on the to do list for the offseason is, can you bring back Juni

Mobley that that feels like you've kind of checked the box for the four.

Okay, how about the two?

Because he's the other guy who, you know, he can score in a way that not that many people

can score when he's when he's on.

And, you know, he doesn't solve all of your problems around the around the, you know,

around the court.

But if you can bring him back and you can bring him more, you know, you already have Bynam

back, that feels like that's the core of a not too bad team when you talk, when we

start talking about some of the other guys who are coming in.

Yeah, this is part two in the whole thing.

And, you know, he is, he can be an elite score.

He's a streaky shooter, but he can, you know, he takes a lot of quick shots.

Maybe some are bad shots.

There's some desperation shots and he gets stuck with that into the, the shot clock.

But he is a consistent score for them.

And, you know, scored double digits like the last eight, ten games or so.

And certainly over the course of the season, many, many more double digit games than not.

And his guy that's only going to get better.

And he can play the one he can play the two.

You obviously want him more to do just because that's his kind of game.

And he's not, he has the ability to distribute.

And I do wonder if they can't end up with a, a transfer point guard.

Is this something that they might want to ask him to do a little bit of?

But yeah, this is the next step because your core, when you're talking about the, the three guys,

you know, Mari Bynum and John Moby Jr. and Devon Royal, the two guys that you want to keep

of those three are Bynum and Moby.

And so this is the next step.

And I would expect it to, to happen.

I mean, he's, he's been allowed to do essentially whatever he wants, you know, in this offense.

And not in a, not in a bad way.

Like he's crazy.

You know, he's, he's out of control.

It's, he's got the freedom to be himself in this offense.

And Jake Dibler has given him that and told him to be aggressive.

And, you know, he, he'll take some deep shots, but he can also hit him.

And he's, he's a threat to score from anywhere.

And he stretches the defense, which I think, you know, that's, that's only going to help you as you move forward.

So you've got your four, you're trying to bring back your two.

The three is 2026 forward, Anthony Thompson, the five star recruit.

And, you know, we'll see anytime you're relying on a true freshman, there's always a little bit of,

well, we'll see there will probably be a little bit of a learning curve there, a little bit of a process there.

But the fact that you have him coming in probably made Royal a little bit superfluous.

If you've got your two, three, four there, that made Royal a little bit superfluous.

Then I feel like we do this on every show.

But man, you got to find your one, you got to find your five.

And that feels like those are after you get mobility back in the fold officially,

those are kind of the next two items on the shopping list.

Yeah, and, and I think we talked about this on the Devon Royal show is everybody else is looking for a point guard as well.

And if you're not, then boy, are you one of the luxurious ones, you're the lucky ones,

because this is going to be a market where there's going to be a bunch out there.

Guys, you're going to go ahead and jump in because they know they can,

they can make some money and have an impact somewhere.

So I think that's, that's the next step.

And I think that the good thing is that you're probably going to end up with,

if you end up with somebody, right, and one of the top guys,

they're going to be veteran or at least a talented young player who established himself early.

You should be able to find somebody that is really darn good.

Now it's just a matter of beating the rest of the people out there shopping for the same thing

and bringing somebody in that, you know, can distribute.

You want them to be able to score as well,

but I think they need some distribution in this.

And that's, I think, the next step.

And then, you know, we don't really know in terms of the center situation,

what they can get out of Joshua, Joshua, Junua yet.

So that's something that is to be determined.

Certainly, Jake Dealer knows more than we do about if they feel like he's,

he can be that guy next year, along with the Vanya Govan, we will see.

But if they are bringing in some big men, you know, in terms of hosting on visits,

that will tell us something.

It's also going to be anytime now you start hearing about visits with point guards

and seeing where things go from there.

And of the other guys, front court guys, back court guys,

you mentioned the two kind of big men who are potential returners for next season.

Anyone else that you look at and go, boy, this is my first priority that they bring.

This guy back just in terms of depth or is, you know, is it kind of you can,

you know, you can find some replacements and figure out, you know, figure it out from there?

No, I think the, the, the next priority priority would be Tason Chapman

because he can play the one and the two.

And he's been around and he's had some moments this past season where,

you know, his confidence is grown. He, he is back to believing he's the player that he was

before he got to Ohio State and dealt with injuries and dealt with being on the bench, not playing.

So his confidence is growing and he gives you some versatility and some, some depth on the bench

and can be that sixth man for you. I think he's, he's important to bring back because you still

need to build that depth. And I think what you'll see now is, you know, this is a roster of 13

and 14. It's, it's, there's too many. You've got to reduce that and, and make it a roster of

10 or 12 that you've got the quality is more important than the quantity because everybody's got to

get paid. No, no sense in paying three guys or four guys who are never going to play. That's just

wasted money. So you've got to condense that roster and, and you know, you can't, you know,

Chris Altman used to say you can't play more than 10 guys anyway. And that's why he would go ahead

and bring in a transfer who would just red shirt that year because back when, back when, back

in the day, when you had to sit, when you would transfer, you can't play all these guys anyway.

So why pay for them? Here you go. Way back in the day when Chris

Altman was the basketball coach at Ohio State and everything was black and white and, uh,

the baskets were made out of peach baskets. Little people don't remember that. But, uh, yes,

that is way back in the day in the Chris Altman era. So there you go. A little bit of an update.

Some more good news from some, some good news, I guess for Ohio State. Some, some more news,

some good news for Ohio State basketball this off season. We will see if the, uh, John

Mobley good news comes at some point in the coming days. And then of course, we will be back at

the Woody Hayes Athletics Center on Tuesday. Get a chance to talk to Ryan Day, following practice.

We'll have an update on that in the Buckeye Weekly Podcast feed for you. So make sure you're

subscribed to that as well. And also make sure you're subscribed with us at youtube.com slash

BuckeyeHeadle and at BuckeyeHeadle.com. That'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us.

Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.