Monday, September 26, 2011

Wishing Kevin Parrom A Speedy Recovery; Ohio State Loses LaQuinton Ross

I hate it when I have to write about the basketball implications of a serious real life issue, and so I'm going to punt on the shooting of Arizona's Kevin Parrom, a very efficient scorer from both inside and out who still has two years of eligibility left. The good news is that his life isn't in danger and it looks like he'll be "okay". At some point the basketball implications will become more apparent, and I'll talk about that then. Hopefully he'll be able to make a full recovery and will be back on the court soon.

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Ohio State got some bad news today, though it's less somber: 2011 recruit LaQuinton Ross has failed to qualify academically and will be unable to play for at least the fall semester, though indications are that he does still hope to play in the spring semester. Rivals.com lists him as the 43rd best player in the 2011 class. It's hard to feel too bad for an Ohio State team that returns a stacked team and that had added the #10 ranked recruiting class by Rivals.com (Scout ranked them 8th, and ESPN has them 6th), but this does put more pressure on Deshaun Thomas. Thomas and Ross were expected to compete for the small forward spot, and now the position will all be on Thomas

DeShaun Thomas was a relatively minor player on last year's Ohio State team, but he was very effective when used. He shot 54.2% on two-pointers and was able to step outside, where he hit 32.8% on 64 attempts. He led the team in offensive rebounding percentage (15.0%) and was a solid defender.

Losing LaQuinton Ross hurts the team's depth, but they're still going to be deeper than last year's team, which only went seven players deep. Buckeyes fans will hope to have Ross back for the spring semester and the Big Ten regular season, but even without him I still rate them as the #2 team in the nation behind North Carolina. I expected Ross to just be a bench contributor anyway, and I think those two teams are a clear step above the rest of the field.

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