Recapping LGHL’s 2020-21 College Basketball season predictions

Well, the 2020-21 men’s college basketball season is officially over. Last night the No. 1 Baylor Bears boatraced the favored No. 1 Gonzaga WhateverTheirNicknameIs by a score of 86-70. But, if you are an Ohio State fan, chances are, the NCAA Tournament ended for you on the exact same day that it began.

We won’t discuss what happened on that fateful Friday two and a half weeks ago, so instead, now that everything is all said and done, we are going to take a look at how accurate the Land-Grant Holy Land staff’s preseason predictions were for the Buckeye, Big Ten, and men’s college basketball seasons.

And, for the first time ever, at the end of the article, we will unveil the season’s best prognosticator, based on these results. No, we’ve never done that before for any of our previous predictions articles, and no; there is no specific reason why I have selected to do it in this specific instance either. Nope, absolutely no reason whatsoever.

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Who will lead Ohio State in points per game this season?

This one was close, as Duane Washington Jr.’s late-season explosion pushed him past E.J. Liddell with 16.4 points per game compared to the big man’s 16.2, but 62.5% of LGHL’s respondents ended up being correct. Those predictors were Dan Hessler, Tia Johnston, Brett Ludwiczak, and Gene Ross. Nice job, team!

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Who will lead Ohio State in rebounds per game this season?

The majority of LGHLers picked Kyle Young for this one, as he was the most known of the big men commodities on the roster coming into the season, however, he finished second with 5.48 rebounds per game to Liddell’s 6.66 (oh crap, don’t tell Lil Nas X).

So, three of us got this one right: Connor Lemons, Ludwiczak, and me — Matt Tamanini,

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Who will lead Ohio State in assists per game this season?

Despite missing a handful of games, and eventually coming off the bench in his final season in Columbus, CJ Walker was far and away the best assist man on the team, dishing out 4.4 per contest. That means that Meredith Hein, Johnston, Lemons, Ross, and Tamanini all got another notch in the correct column.

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Who will lead Ohio State in steals per game this season?

And we officially have our first 0-fer category, as no one correctly predicted that Justice Sueing would lead the team in steals. Hell, it doesn’t even look like he made the graphic from the initial article.

The former Cal Bear finished the season with 0.94 steals per game, while the predicted favorite — Walker — finished just behind him with 0.89.

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Who will lead Ohio State in three-point shooting percentage and what will the percentage be?

This one is a little more tricky than it at first appears. According to the official college basketball stat rules, to qualify in the three-point shooting percentage category, players must attempt an average of 2.5 triples per contest and they must play in 75% of their school’s games.

So, Meechie Johnson Jr. (50%) and Young (43%) therefore do not qualify, so OSU’s official three-point champion on the season is Justin Ahrens having connected on 42.5% of his attempts from downtown. Two people (Lemons and Tamanini) correctly predicted Ahrens to come out on top, but by 0.7% I Tamanini wins this category, because I he went with 41.7%, while Connor went with an even 41%.

Chalk another one up for the good guy!

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What will Kyle Young’s shooting percentage be this season?

Admittedly, this was a weird question, considering that Kyle ended up shooting outside the paint a lot more than he had in his previous seasons, but only one person predicted that KY’s field goal percentage would be between 50-55% (it ended up at 54.3%), and that was <opens the envelope> oh wait, it was me Tamanini again. Gosh, that guy knows his basketball.

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How many blocks per game will E.J. Liddell end the season with?

Despite being an All-Big Ten first-team honoree this season, Liddell didn’t crack the conference’s top 10 in terms of blocks. His 1.1 rejections per game came in 12th in the B1G, but Hein, Ludwiczak, and Ross all picked the proper split on this one. Good going.

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Who will be the biggest surprise for Ohio State this season and why?

Considering that Liddell ended up being first-team all conference, one might say that he was the biggest surprise of the season and that the win for this category belongs to me Tamanini, but Hein and Ross also had solid predictions, so I’ll call it a three-way tie.

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Who will be the most valuable player who did not play for Ohio State last year and why?

I know that this is a subjective question, but I think Sueing is the obvious answer here. After sitting out the 2019-20 season following his transfer, he went for 10.7 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game as a starter from Day 1. So, Ludwiczak and Tamanini get full credit on this one, with Lemons — who can’t seem to follow directions — getting partial credit.

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Who will be Ohio State’s MVP this season and why?

We all wiffed on this one. Despite Liddell getting a lot of love in other categories, most of us thought that Walker’s veteran leadership would push him to be the team’s MVP... whoopsies.

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What is your boldest, most out-of-left-field prediction for Ohio State this season?

Look, these were supposed to be long-shot predictions, which might account for why we were all (pretty much) wrong. However, I am going to give Gene partial credit on this, because while his prediction was about the team as a whole, he did focus on the offense, and there’s no denying that Ohio State’s scoring was infinitely better than it was last year; the defense... not so much. But Ross was in the ballpark, so, half-credit.

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What place will Ohio State finish in the Big Ten?

A quarter of our predictions ended up being correct, as Hein and Tamanini both picked the Buckeyes to finish fifth in the final, regular-season conference standings. Chris Holtmann’s team ended the season with a .600 winning percentage, just behind fourth place Purdue’s .684.

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Who will win the Big Ten regular season?

The Mitten State Weasels technically finished the regular season with a 23-4 overall record, having gone 14-3 in the B1G. That was the best of the bunch, but they benefitted (at least statistically) from playing three fewer games than Illinois thanks to being shut down for three weeks due to COVID concerns.

The Fighting Hugh Jackmans only played each of the other top-5 teams in the conference one time apiece (they went 4-1 in those games, with their only loss coming in a 76-53 blowout to the Illini). I maintain that had they played their regularly scheduled games from Jan. 22 through Feb. 14, they would have fallen to second in the league. But, that’s just my completely biased opinion.

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Who will be the Big Ten Player of the Year?

That one was easy.

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Who will be the Big Ten Coach of the Year?

Juwan Howard won. Who cares?

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Who will be the four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament?

Connor and I both got three of the eventual four No. 1 seeds (Gonzaga, Baylor, Illinois, and Michigan) correct; obviously neither of us picked the Corn and Blue. If I wanted to be nitpicky about it, and create a tiebreaker, my fourth pick was No. 2 Houston, while his was No. 11 UCLA.

Yes, I know that the Bruins were one crazy ass buzzer-beater away playing for the title, but this question was about going into the tournament, not where they were at the end of March Madness. So, I think it would be far if I went ahead and claimed this category as a victory. But, I will be magnanimous and go ahead and say that both Lemons and I get a point.

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Will Ohio State make the NCAA Tournament?

Hein, Hessler, Ludwiczak, Lemons, Ross, and Tamanini all got this one right... although maybe it would have been better if we hadn’t.

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How will Ohio State’s season end?

We’re not going to talk about how the Buckeyes’ season ended. Next question.

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Who will be the Naismith College Player of the Year?

Look, Dan, Gene, and I got creative, we were thinking outside of the box, trying to avoid going for the easy answer, but what this should remind you is that chalk is the safest bet in men’s basketball.

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We here at LGHL tend to do these types of prediction articles before each football and men’s basketball seasons. However, normally we don’t keep a running tally of who got the most predictions correct. We note what we got wrong and what we got right, but we never turn it into some form of Cold Takes Exposed competition.

However... since I won the Buckeyes weren’t very competitive in the postseason, I figured I’d do the math and see who was the best prognosticator of the LGHL bunch. And oh, wouldn’t you know it? Our co-managing editor Matt Tamanini won going away with 10 correct predictions. Man oh man, that dude must be really smart.