Ohio State men’s basketball player preview: Bowen Hardman

As August gets going and football season goes from a dream to a reality, we here at Land-Grant Holy Land are committed to giving the best possible football coverage. But also, the best possible basketball coverage as well.

Similar to last season, we will be doing player previews and team previews from now until the start of the season. Even though it feels early to start previewing things, it will take 13 weeks to do all of the previews to their fullest since there will be 13 player previews and 13 team previews, and we will be running two per week. Since we are three months away from basketball season, we are starting the player previews now.

The first ones we will do are the five new freshmen on Chris Hotlmann’s roster. Then, we will hit the transfers, and finally, the returning Buckeyes. So first up is Bowen Hardman.

Name: Bowen Hardman
Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 165 pounds
High school: Princeton High School, Cincinnati, Ohio
Class: Freshman
2021-22 stats: N/A

Outlook: Hardman comes in as the lowest ranked recruit in the 2022 recruiting class but is still a solid player who turned heads in high school and earned his Ohio State offer early in his high school career. He is also the recruit that has been committed the longest and has called Ohio State his “dream school”.

As a junior, Hardman averaged 15.1 points per game and 3.2 rebounds per game while shooting almost 38 percent from three-point range.

He comes in known as a shooter but is a scorer who can get into the lane and create as well. He can create in the paint, shoot over guys and get to the foul line.

Hardman came in listed as a 6-foot-4, 160-pound shooting guard from Princeton High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hardman was a three-star recruit and ranked No. 308 recruit in the country, the 48th ranked shooting guard and the 12th ranked recruit in the state of Ohio, according to 247 sports.

Expectation: The expectation for Hardman is not really anything that will happen on the court. The main thing he needs to focus on is development. Hardman talked about his transition and his lifting since he got to Columbus with Griffin Strom of Eleven Warriors.

“I would definitely say the weight room, I think that’s the biggest thing. You lift in high school, but in college you lift lift,” Hardman said. “You figure out how you actually get stronger and transition from high school to college.”

Hardman added “(The first few weeks) have definitely been tough. On the floor workouts have been a lot faster pace. The weight room’s huge, that’s a big part, that’s probably the toughest part so far. It’s definitely been really cool so far, just being able to be one of the guys, seeing different guys do different jobs, play different roles has been huge.”

With the way that the roster is shaping out, it is likely that Hardman will redshirt. With the other four freshmen, three transfers, and the five returning Buckeyes, that is 12 guys that will see some floor time. It would really only be logical for Hardman to do what Kalen Etzler did last season and redshirt and take the season to gain some muscle and get used to the speed of the game. It benefited Etzler as he seems faster, stronger, and ready to go this season.

Also, Ohio State is losing at least four guys next season and there will be more minutes to go around for Hardman to take.

Prediction: The final prediction is that Hardman will take a redshirt season and use the season to get stronger. If he doesn't, we can adjust and put actual expectations and predictions for him, but right now I do not expect to see Hardman on the court this season and ultimately, I think that is a positive thing for him in terms of his overall improvement and development.