Ohio State was not among the 68 teams selected to play in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday night. Its run to win six of its last eight games ultimately proved insufficient to put the Buckeyes in contention for the college basketball championship.
This is the first time since the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons – his final two years under Thad Matta – that Ohio State has missed the Big Dance in consecutive seasons. The only other time this century that Ohio State missed back-to-back tournaments was when the Buckeyes failed to make it three years in a row from 2002-03 to 2004-05.
Being even vaguely involved in the conversation about bubbles for the NCAA Tournament is a testament to the turnaround the Buckeyes have produced this campaign. After a 12-2 start, Ohio State lost nine of 11 games, including its second 18-point second-half lead of the season in a Quadrant 3 loss to Indiana.
Head coach Chris Holtmann was fired on February 14. Four days later, in his first game under then-interim head coach Jake Diebler, Ohio State. so shocked-No. 2Purdue to get its first real dose of momentum since December.
A loss in the next game at Minnesota brought the Buckeyes back down to earth only for them to be thrown into the stratosphere again with a victory at the buzzer at Michigan State on February 25. The victory ended a 17-game road losing streak for the team, the longest in program history.
He also started a four-game winning streak for Ohio State to close out its regular season, including one extended to five games with a victory in the second round in the Big Ten tournament against Iowa. Many bracketologists thought a quarterfinal win over Illinois — which went on to win the Big Ten Tournament — would put the Buckeyes directly in the conversation for an at-large NCAA Tournament bid, but OSU below by just three points in this game, 77-74.
Even that might not have been enough to get the Buckeyes into the Big Dance, given the number of bid-stealing teams in conference tournaments nationwide. NC State (ACC), Duquesne (A-10), UAB (AAC) and Oregon (Pac-12) were among the teams that earned additional NCAA Tournament bids for their conferences by winning their respective conference tournaments.
The Buckeyes, who are 20-13 overall, did not have a high enough NET ranking (49th) or a good enough record in Quadrant 2 games (3-5) to compete along the bubble. Three of the final four teams in the tournament were in the top 40 in the NET rankings: Colorado (25th), Boise State (27th) and Colorado State (36th).
Virginia, the other of the bottom four teams, had a better overall record (23-10) and a much better second quarter record (8-3) than Ohio State, despite a lower NET ranking of 54th.
While Ohio State will not make the NCAA tournament, six other Big Ten schools will. Purdue earned one of four No. 1 seeds in the tournament. The Boilermakers are joined by Illinois (3 seeds), Wisconsin (5 seeds), Nebraska (8 seeds), Northwestern (9 seeds) and Michigan State (9 seeds) in a field of 68.
The Buckeyes will now have to decide whether to accept an invitation to the NIT, with the selection show for that tournament scheduled to begin at 9:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
