We’ve all had time to digest what took place this college basketball season, even the recently decided championship in which Duke edged out fuzzy, cuddly Butler in Indianapolis for the 2010 title.

But now you want to know how to feel as an Ohio State basketball fan. You are concerned that the Sweet 16 loss to Tennessee is an indicator of a potentially troubling trend as the Buckeyes couldn’t quite keep up inside and with a shortened bench.

You see a glaring need for a point guard and more options off the bench and you are freaking out a little bit that the national player of the year, Evan Turner, is now gone and awaiting his NBA appointment.

You’re beginning to wonder if Thad Matta, 2007 aside, may not have the magic formula for truly contending for a national championship and you also wonder if you really want to emotionally invest in the Buckeyes next year, especially with so much reliance on a bunch of newcomers.

Well my job is to talk you down, and in this next installment of Off The Ledge, that’s exactly what I intend to do.

Therefore, here are five reasons why the Ohio State men’s basketball team will still be very formidable in 2010-11:

Fierce Urgency Of Now – As great as Turner was last season and as much as he was able to carry the day, the Buckeyes sometimes were guilty of standing around and letting him take over or, worse, waiting for him to bail them out.

He did it more often than not, but the problem bit in the Tennessee affair as no one took the pressure off him offensively in the first half and the Buckeyes also forgot how to play with any cohesion on defense, allowing layup after layup.

Yes, Ohio State’s outlook would have been dreamy with No. 21 back for his senior season. But since the Buckeyes know that won’t happen, they can spend the entire offseason readying for life without him. That sobering fact will require the four returning starters to ramp up their games this summer.

“With him, of course we would be that much better,” said 6-5 swingman David Lighty, who will be a fifth-year senior in the fall. “But without him, I still believe we have a great team.”

Added fellow senior-to-be Jon Diebler, a 6-6 guard, “I don’t think one person is going to become the next Evan Turner. I don’t think there will be. He did such a great job and the things he did on the court were unbelievable. But as a unit we showed glimpses of it when he went down and this year we can prepare for that. And I think as a group we can fill the void.

“I have to take that next step as a basketball player and we all have to do that.”

If guys like Diebler, Lighty and 6-5 wing William Buford do indeed show improvement, this is still a very capable team – and a very dangerous one come tournament time.

As Advertised – It will be interesting to see how the six incoming freshmen mesh in and augment the veterans and certainly there will be growing pains and a need for patience and development.

But make no mistake, this six-pack is fizzy with talent.

Columbus Northland product Jared Sullinger is a 6-9, 260-pound force down low who showed in his senior year that he has legitimate range out to the three-point arc. He would have been as asset to this program two years ago but now is even more polished, as evidenced by him being named a two-time Ohio “Mr. Basketball” and the Naismith boys basketball national player of the year.

The other highly decorated recruit in the class is fellow McDonald’s All-American DeShaun Thomas, a 6-7 lefty combo forward who is a scoring a rebounding machine. Thomas will leave Fort Wayne Bishop Luers as the third-leading scorer all-time in the impressive history of Indiana prep basketball.

Those two alone are going to greatly change the landscape of the front line, which lost only 6-9 role player Kyle Madsen. In fact, Sullinger not only will provide immediate help inside for 6-8 center Dallas Lauderdale, he could take over a big chunk of Lauderdale’s minutes.

“Hopefully it’ll be like the team we had this year with a couple new guys who can come in and help us out a lot,” Lighty said. “I think our bench will go deeper. And having a number of big men is always nice. That’ll help out a lot in the Big Ten.”

The other four newcomers are 6-6 forward J.D. Weatherspoon of Columbus Northland, 6-4 shooting guard Jordan Sibert of Cincinnati Princeton, 6-3 guard Lenzelle Smith Jr. of Zion (Ill.) Zion-Benton and 6-2 guard Aaron Craft of Findlay (Ohio) Liberty-Benton.

They are all outstanding athletes who played in big-time AAU programs and won’t be afraid to enter the fray. Sibert is a major talent who appears to be a perfect fit for Matta’s system and Weatherspoon is a springy-legged lefty with a huge upside, especially if he can play on the wing. Smith and Craft are heady combo guards who can do a variety of things on the court.

Plus, unlike in the 2006-07 season when Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. were forced into leadership roles, these newbies will have the benefit of learning from a very experienced core of returning players.

“We’re going to get all the guys in here in the summer and make sure they’re ready to go,” Diebler said. “And we’re going to jell as a unit.

“With the leaders that we have coming back we’re going to try to make that transition a lot easier and we’re going to help them as much as we can because this is going to be our third, fourth summer. So we’ve been through it, and I know we’re going to want to make the best out of it.”

This is an especially key element if Craft proves capable of playing a part-time role at point guard.

“I think it would make it easier with the people that we have around if one of the freshmen were to play point guard,” Diebler said. “It would make it easier that we have two seniors on the wing and then another junior, and then Dallas inside and Jared coming in and you can go down the line – DeShaun, Jordan, Lenzelle and J.D.”

Versatility Galore – Quick, who was Duke’s point guard last season?

Just like Matta, Mike Krzyzewski would prefer to have a jet at lead guard who can distribute the ball and hawk like players out high – and he’ll have that next season in the form of McDonald’s All-American Kyrie Irving – but I think it’s safe to say it worked out OK for the Blue Devils without such a player. It worked out pretty well for Ohio State, too, as the 6-7 Turner stuck to the point and became the Big Ten’s runner-up leader in assists.

Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith – a shooter and a terrific all-around athlete – were the listed starting guards for Duke last season and came up big in the run to the national title. This season, the Buckeyes are going to use Diebler and Lighty – a shooter and an athlete – in the lead guard role at times. Who’s to say it can’t work?

This is the trend nowadays in college basketball, to have interchangeable parts with size that can do multiple things. It’s a big reason why Matta was reluctant to use smallish and limited guards P.J. Hill and Jeremie Simmons off the bench last season.

So even if Craft and/or Smith earn time with the ball in their hands, it’s still logical to think that Diebler, Lighty and Buford will have the green light to go forth with the rock, especially in transition.

All of those Buckeyes can help at more than one position while Sibert has the size to play either wing spot, Thomas and Weatherspoon are 3-4s, and Sullinger is a 4-5. Lauderdale and 7-0 backup Zisis Sarikopoulos are strictly centers but Matta wants them to be better equipped to run the floor. It’s not known yet if 6-8 Nikola Kecman plans to return but even he is capable of helping at either forward spot.

“It’s going to be a heck of a team next year,” Weatherspoon said. “We’ve got all the pieces. Every single player that is coming in can play two positions and not just one, so that’s real special.”

Shoot And Defend – Turner made the wings around him better and shot 52 percent from the field. Finding someone who can initiate the offense and score or draw fouls with the shot clock running down could be a seasonlong issue.

However, ET was not much of a threat from the outside until the end of the season when teams decided to pack it in and dare him to launch.

There could be long stretches of games this upcoming season where the Buckeyes have four or even five players on the floor with legitimate range out to 20 feet. A big key to that could be the development of Thomas, who tends to run hot and cold from the outside. If he can show that he can hit consistently from deep, the Buckeyes could be very hard to stop provided they pass and execute correctly.

Apparently, the coaches already have brought up the point with Thomas.

“If I work on my jumper and get consistent with it I think I can play the three and help us go out there and spread the floor,” he told SportsRappUp.com after the McDonald’s A-A game.

Sullinger also was dizzy with the possibilities.

“He might draw a box-and-1, which means plenty more open shots for me,” he said.

With all of the firepower on offense the bigger issue for the Buckeyes will be to play with cohesion – on both ends of the court. Certainly there is the capability for that.

In fact, Craft is a lockdown defender and Weatherspoon has similar potential defensively. Lighty is one of the top defenders in the Big Ten and Sullinger is a very intelligent performer on that end of the court. Smith and Thomas have good strength and tenacity, and Sibert is an occasional playmaker on defense, too. Diebler is fundamentally sound defensively and Buford made great strides in that department last season. Best of all, Lauderdale is an all-league defender and effective shot blocker.

More than anything, Matta will use the preseason to determine which players are best attuned to both ends of the floor.

“Basketball is such a team sport,” he said. “You see a collection of great players out there sometimes that don’t win at the rate that they should. You want five guys guarding the basketball. You want five guys sharing the basketball on offense. If you have one guy out there who’s a ball stopper or whatever, it can be disastrous.”

Lofty Goals – Last but not least, the 2010-11 Buckeyes are not going to settle for anything less than true title contention. That goes for the league season and in the NCAA Tournament.

“We’re all coming in with the same mind-set,” Sullinger said. “We all want to win. That’s all that matters. We always talk about the national championship.”

“It’s going to be crazy – me, Jared, J.D. – real crazy,” Thomas said. “We’re going to try to come out and win a national championship. With the guys we’ve got and to be able to spread the floor like that, it’s going to be crazy.”