Whenever Ohio State hits the brink of falling out of the NCAA Tournament, the Buckeyes pull themselves back in.
Tuesday's tilt against No. 24 Wisconsin provided the toughest challenge to doing that yet, especially off a brutal loss to No. 15 Virginia. And it was Ohio State's fifth game in 13 days. And John Mobley Jr. was out.
Despite all those obstacles, the Buckeyes assembled their most complete performance of the season in an 86-69 rout of the Badgers. It's was the first win over a ranked team for Ohio State this season. It might not be a Quad 1 win for résumé purposes – at least for now – but it's undoubtedly a boost to OSU's Big Dance chances.
Especially because college basketball extended a helping hand on Tuesday night. Multiple other NCAA Tournament bubble contenders lost, and some in a fashion that provided serious blowsto their tourney cases. Let's break it down.
NCAA Tournament Outlook
Wisconsin, despite its No. 24 ranking in the AP Poll, is 35th in the NET rankings and therefore five spots short of a Quad 1 win for Ohio State's balance sheet, since the Buckeyes faced the Badgers at home. Northwestern, at 77th in the NET, is two spots from making Ohio State's road win over the Wildcats Quad 1.
| Overall Record | 17-9 |
| Home | 11-3 |
| Road | 4-4 |
| NET Ranking | 38th |
| Q1 Record | 0-8 |
| Q2 Record | 6-1 |
Normally, this is the segment where I'd overview the Buckeyes' current projections. But many of the big bracketologists haven't updated their lists as of this posting. Still, there's been enough movement around the bubble to warrant a recapping. Positive movement, if you're an Ohio State fan.
Starting in the Big Ten, the team closest to the Buckeyes on the bubble is UCLA. There was some wiggle room between the two squads, given the Bruins hold a pair of Quad 1 wins, including a signature victory over No. 7 Purdue. Mick Cronin's squad had the leeway to lose at No. 15 Michigan State on Tuesday, but his team got outright embarrassed in an 82-59 defeat.
Ohio State's head-to-head win over Cronin's cronies should come into play if their résumés equalize a touch more. Buckeye fans are advised to root for No. 10 Illinois and USC when they play the Bruins in their home arena on Feb. 21 and 24. Then again, the Trojans are also battling on the bubble with the Buckeyes. They're another team OSU has a head-to-head win over.
San Diego State took perhaps the biggest hit of the bubble contenders. The Aztecs were the last team in on Joe Lunardi's latest Bracketology update for ESPN on Tuesday morning. Tuesday night, they lost a Quad 3 game to Grand Canyon. That's at least one team the Buckeyes should immediately leapfrog.
FOX's Mike DeCourcy had Ohio State all the way down as his fifth team out of the tournament. The Buckeyes dodged a bullet when Virginia Tech, one of the teams in DeCourcy's first four out, failed in its upset bid at tournament-secure Miami, losing 67-66.
TCU stood among Lunardi's last four in and was the next-to-last team in, ahead of San Diego State, in the Bracket Matrix, which aggregates 124 expert NCAA Tournament projections but also hasn't been updated to reflect Tuesday's results. The Horned Frogs dropped an 82-71 game at UCF, the No. 46 team in the NET rankings. Even Baylor, Lunardi's ninth team out, lost 90-74 at Kansas State, which has a losing record this season.
The only other bubble team to join the Buckeyes in logging a Quad 2 or better win on Tuesday was Georgia. The Bulldogs were picked as one of the last four byes (or next-to-last four in) by both Lunardi and Bracket Matrix and notched an impressive Quad 1 win at Kentucky.
It'll be interesting to see where the chips fall when all the projections are updated, but Ohio State should undeniably rise. Tonight, the Buckeyes will keep an eye on USC, which welcomes Illinois, and root for an upset from Ole Miss at Texas A&M.
| Team | Conference Record | Overall Record |
|---|---|---|
| Michigan | 15–1 | 25–1 |
| Illinois | 12–3 | 21–5 |
| Nebraska | 11–4 | 22–4 |
| Purdue | 11–4 | 21–5 |
| Michigan State | 11–4 | 21–5 |
| Wisconsin | 10–5 | 18–8 |
| Iowa | 9–6 | 19–7 |
| Ohio State | 9–6 | 17–9 |
| UCLA | 9–6 | 17–9 |
| Indiana | 8–7 | 17–9 |
| USC | 7–7 | 18–7 |
| Washington | 4–8 | 12–11 |
| Minnesota | 4–8 | 11–12 |
| Northwestern | 2–10 | 10–16 |
| Rutgers | 2–10 | 9–14 |
| Maryland | 1–10 | 8–14 |
| Oregon | 1–10 | 8–14 |
| Penn State | 1–11 | 10–13 |
Big Ten Outlook
Alternating wins with losses for nine consecutive conference games has kept Ohio State in contention for a double-bye in the Big Ten Tournament, which is extended to the conference's top eight teams in the final regular-season standings. The Buckeyes are tied for seventh alongside Iowa and UCLA.
That set of circumstances means Ohio State, in essence, controls its destiny for a double-bye. With their aforementioned head-to-head win over the Bruins in hand, the Buckeyes also get a shot to beat Iowa head-to-head on the road on Feb. 25 and own the tiebreaker over both teams.
If the Buckeyes don't upset Michigan State in East Lansing on Saturday, the stakes of their clash with the Hawkeyes for both their NCAA and Big Ten Tournament standing cannot be understated. Iowa is a bona fide Big Dance team, ranked 26th in the NET. Playing the Black and Gold at home would be Quad 1, let alone on the road.
A first-round conference tournament bye is secure for Ohio State, which is six games ahead of that cut line with six games to go. The Buckeyes are two games back of fourth place and a triple-bye straight to the quarterfinals, which only seems plausible if they win at least five of their final six games.
