Michael Conroy - AP

2 months ago: Ohio State's William Buford, left, and Butler's Willie Veasley battle for a loose ball during the first half of a NCAA college basketball game in Indianapolis, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

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With an upcoming stretch of Presbyterian (2-8), Delaware State (4-4) and Cleveland State (4-6), the Ohio State basketball team faces a crossroads not unlike the one the football team faced following the USC loss. This team needs to find a number of things: an ability to score consistently enough from different parts of the hardwood, a vocal leader outside of Evan Turner, and an ability to consistently defend something aside from an opponents' intermediate-range game.

While Ohio State will not solve its problems by squaring off against the Poor Sisters of Mercy programs 1, 2 and 3, it can at least hone some skills that are definitely going to be needed to have a good Big Ten stretch run. Here are the key areas that I feel need work if we want to beat most Big Ten teams, let alone the Badgers:

• Not to hammer the obvious too much here, but it's going to take more than Will Buford to make up for Turner's absence, and that's especially true for Ohio State's limited inside game. No one currently can offer the penetration threat that Turner did, but someone will have to at least attempt a reasonable approximation off of it to take a little bit of pressure off of Jon Diebler. Presently, Ohio State's offense is this: move the ball around as much as possible on the perimeter, feed the ball to Lauderdale only if there is no one within twenty miles of him, and hope Diebler eventually gets something resembling an uncontested shot. True, this isn't all that different from the "wait until Turner does something spectacular" approach of the first eight or so games, but it's even more of a high-risk, low-reward scenario because Diebler isn't nearly as consistent of a scorer as Turner. Relying solely on this guy is a recipe for disaster. If the guy's shot is even remotely contested, it's not going to fall. That's just a sad fact of life. Lighty and Buford both have the ability to be the Turner-esque inside foil to Diebler's outside game, and I hope we see this develop over the course of the next few games.
  
• A little bit more concerning the offensive gameplan. I'm not under the illusion that a powerful, consistent inside game off of penetration is ever going to develop, so there needs to be a Plan B. And that Plan B is getting Jon Diebler to grow a set. Dude just can't chuck up treys, contested or uncontested, and expect just that to be his contribution to his offense. I know the kid's a sharpshooter at heart, but the threat at least has to be there. Hanging out on the perimeter all game will get him erased by opposing defensive gameplans early and often, just as we saw against the Bulldogs.
• Defensively, I realize there aren't a lot of changes that can be made personnel-wise, but schematically, I'd favor some more looks at that 1-2-2 press. It showed up way, way too late at Butler and clearly throttled the Bulldog offense. If Ohio State finds itself struggling against these jabronis we have coming in, or even if it's experiencing the expected amount of success, it wouldn't hurt to give this look some more practice.
• I'd like to see Dallas Lauderdale get some more help. I know we're not very deep on the inside, and I'd rather have him out there than Kyle Madsen and Zisis Sarikopolous, but the guy has limitations that no amount of experience will overcome. I shudder to think of him alone against any Big Ten Power Forward/Center combo you can name, and I'd like to see a few new non-1-2-2-affiliated wrinkles to our post defense that allow some others to help shoulder the burden.
  

Of course, I'm not "expecting" all, or even half of these things to actually happen. Matta's a man with a plan, and I may just be talking out of my ass as an amateur observer. Nevertheless, I'd like to see this team make some readily-apparent strides, even if I know they're coming against the college basketball equivalent of jobbers. Improving on at least a few of these things will help tremendously by the time conference season kicks in.

ed. note: Don't forget to help Toby with his blog survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WSQGPZ2