Who doesn’t miss the days when Ohio State basketball made deep NCAA Tournament runs consistently?
People 11 years old or younger, for one. That’s how long it’s been since the Buckeyes made the Sweet 16 of the Big Dance. Maybe bump it up to 15 years old or younger, since most of us don’t remember much from before we lasted four revolutions around the sun. An 11-year-old, in fact, has seen Ohio State miss three more NCAA Tournaments (seven) than it’s made (four).
Ohio State hasn’t been to the tourney at all since 2022. But the expectations at the top of the athletic department still go beyond making March Madness.
“Yes, we need to be in the tournament,” Buckeye athletic director Ross Bjork told Eleven Warriors on Monday. “That's not just the minimum standard. We want to be in the tournament and then make a long run. I mean, that's what Ohio State has done before. There's no reason why we cannot do that.”
Fresh off a 21-point loss to its rival, No. 3 Michigan, itself in the second year of a new coaching regime under Dusty May as Ohio State is under Jake Diebler, Bjork recognizes there’s work to do to bring Buckeye basketball back to where it was when current high school upperclassmen were infants. Especially in an age that requires much more monetary investment than the program is currently getting.
But to quote an old coaching cliché, the standard is the standard. And it’s expected that Diebler gets his program to that standard as the resources at his disposal, ideally, improve.
“My expectation is that we're in the tournament every year and we make a long run,” Bjork said. “Jake understands that. He gets the expectation of the program. But I also know what is happening behind the scenes and how we're recruiting and how we're looking at the roster and roster construction. We're putting more resources on the NIL front, and we’re asking some people to step up in that front as well. So we’ve got to build that piece out and continue to evolve. But look, we got work to do. We're not happy with losing that one game, but we also know that we are in the mix. We are in the conversation.”
The conversation Ohio State is engaged in is whether it will, at last, make an NCAA Tournament after three consecutive misses. The Buckeyes are as bubbly as a bubble team can be.
Out of the 110 bracket projections aggregated by Bracket Matrix, 53 have Ohio State in the Big Dance. The average of all those predictions is that the Buckeyes are the very last team in. Joe Lunardi has them as his last team in for his Bracketology on ESPN. FOX’s Mike DeCourcy also has OSU among his last four in.
Ultimately, as jarring as hearing “Let’s Go Blue” echo around the Schottenstein Center from Michigan fans on Sunday was, the loss didn’t drop the Buckeyes’ NCAA Tournament standing much, if at all. It’s a lost opportunity, and a sign of the program’s state that Ohio State couldn’t make the game interesting. But there’s still plenty to play for.
“My expectation is that we're in the tournament every year and we make a long run.”– Ross Bjork on the standard for Ohio State men's basketball
“Look, we're disappointed, obviously,” Bjork said. “No one's happy with that outcome. I was in the locker room after the game and our guys are, you know, they're mad. But we can't – we've got eight games left – we can't let that game beat us the rest of the season. In basketball, you got to turn the page fast. We know we're better than what we performed on Sunday.”
College basketball existed in a different dimension when Ohio State made its last run to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. The transfer portal didn’t exist for another three years. The funneling of name, image and likeness dollars into college sports? Three years after that. Revenue sharing directly from the athletic department to student-athletes? Four more years down the road.
In the year 2026, Ohio State’s athletic department and donors must invest resources into men’s basketball for it to compete in the Big Ten and make deep NCAA Tournament runs. But those are resources that don’t go to football. And football is both the reason the athletics department has major resources in the first place and the sport that demands as much of them as possible.
Men’s basketball gets a cut of the approximately $20.5 million Ohio State can share with its athletes. The exact figure isn’t known. Michigan shares 25% of its $20.5 million with the rosters of its basketball programs, according to what Wolverine athletic director Warde Manuel told 247Sports in June. The Buckeyes’ figure is almost certainly not that high. But it’s a “sizable allocation,” Bjork said. He added that basketball will have a bigger number next year, when Ohio State doesn't have to count $2.5 million in scholarships toward its $20.5 million total as a detail of the House settlement.
“All of our sports would love a revenue share allocation, but we can't do it,” Bjork said. “We have to make decisions the best that we know how, and so that's what we're doing with basketball. We're pouring into it. We need to be resourced at a higher level. So we're working on that to make sure that we do have the roster to compete at the highest level. That's the goal.”
On the NIL front, apathy is a concern when it comes to investment. The team hasn’t achieved the results to get its football-crazed fan and donor base invested in the team. There have been fewer than 11,000 fans in attendance to watch four of Ohio State’s first six home games against Big Ten teams. 11,000 is 58.5% of the arena’s 18,800-seat capacity. The Michigan matchup is the first time this year that more than 13,000 fans were in the seats in the Schott.
Jake Diebler's basketball program needs to draw in more NIL support by producing better results on the court. Photo credit: Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The Buckeyes recently won a massive recruitment with plenty of NIL dollars involved, landing five-star small forward Anthony Thompson. But Ohio State needs to score some wins in the transfer portal, too. Sean Stewart, Aaron Bradshaw, Meechie Johnson Jr. and Gabe Cupps all fell or are falling well short of their expected output in Columbus. Interior defense and rebounding have been pervasive issues that portal lands haven't addressed.
"Basketball will have a bigger (revenue share) number next year. And then it's about, again, the race to build out third-party NIL opportunities is here," Bjork said. "We've done it on the football side and we're doing it on the basketball side. We've got to build that number up."
The Buckeyes have eight games remaining, three against top-15 teams in the AP Poll and four Quad 1 games for tournament résumé purposes. USC comes to a hushed Schottenstein Center as a Quad 2 opponent.
It’s likely a must-win game against a fellow bubble team.
“There's winnable games down the stretch, but we have to deliver, period,” Bjork said. “That's what every program here at Ohio State has to do. We have to deliver. We have to get better. And I keep using the word with our basketball program is consistency. We need to be consistent performers in everything that we do, and we're not quite there yet. And with that just comes a lot of work that we're pouring into it and supporting Jake and the staff and making sure that we can finish this season strong.”
