A 14-year Final Four hiatus, a 12-year absence from the Sweet 16, just three NCAA Tournament wins across the last 10 seasons and therefore a general irrelevance within the national college basketball landscape might have your OSU hoops fandom ranging from malaise to anger to apathy but the reality is Ohio State has a deep basketball tradition including 11 trips to the Final Four.
The school's first Final Four appearance came back in 1939 and the most recent occurred in 2012. The most important is obviously the 1960 trip as it ultimately evolved into Ohio State hoops winning it's one and only national title.
Today we look at the most improbable Final Four trip, as earned by the 1967-68 squad led by legendary head coach Fred Taylor.
Expectations were low entering the season - the media picked the Buckeyes to finish 9th in the Big Ten - after the 1966-67 squad limped to a 13-11 overall mark including a 6-8 record in league play to tie for 7th place in what was Taylor's 9th season at the helm. Those low expectations took another hit just before the season was set to tip off as junior Jeff Miller, after leading the team in minutes as a sophomore, endured a career-ending knee injury.
With Miller on the shelf, Ohio State would rely on a talented frontline headlined by center Bill Hosket and forwards Dave Sorenson and Steve Howell. Point guard Denny Meadors also proved a clutch performer for the scarlet and gray.
The Buckeyes significantly outpaced the gloom and doom prediction finishing the regular season with a 17-7 overall record including a 10-4 mark in Big Ten play featuring a three-game win streak to end the regular season league slate, capped by a win over Illinois in Assembly Hall on March 4.
Only one team from each conference qualified for the NCAA Tournament in those days, and since first place Iowa, by virtue of a 10-3 record, was a 15-point favorite to beat a 5-8 Michigan team at home in a game scheduled for March 8, Ohio State went ahead and held their team appreciation banquet and turned in their jerseys the day after the March 4 victory over the Illini.
Assuming their season was over, the Buckeyes held light workouts for a few days but then on the night of the 8th, a first dose of March Madness kicked in as the Wolverines pulled off a 71-70 stunner in Iowa City with the Hawkeyes missing a potential game-winning shot just before the final buzzer. An anecdote shared by Hosket years later said Taylor sent Michigan head coach Dave Strack a Varsity O blanket as a Thank You for knocking off Iowa.
With both teams tied at 10-4 league records, historically that meant the Big Ten team that hadn't been to the Dance most recently would get the bid. That would've been the Hawkeyes by virtue of Ohio State earning an NCAA bid in 1962... but in May of 1967 the Big Ten honchos passed a rule to create a one-game winner-take-all tiebreaker in which the victor would be declared the Big Ten champion and earn the conference's lone NCAA Tournament bid.
The ruling came on the heels of Michigan State and Indiana tying for the regular season crown the year prior and the Hoosiers won the bid because Sparty had been to the tournament more recently.
The tiebreaker tilt between OSU and Iowa was a neutral site affair staged in Purdue Arena (which was a brand new building that you'll recognize by it's current name - Mackey Arena) exactly one week after the Buckeyes held their end of season banquet. A snow storm and the neutral site led to not even 5,000 fans attending as the Buckeyes nearly blew a 12-point lead but escaped with an 85-81 victory to win the league title and advance to the NCAA Tournament.
Dave Sorenson giving Dan Issel that work. (Malcolm Emmons-Imagn Images)
Unranked but in the Dance, even as the OSU shot-callers didn't want to foot the bill to send the cheerleaders and band, Ohio State headed to Lexington, Kentucky for the Mideast Regional where it took on East Tennessee State. The Buckeyes built an 18-point lead before earning a 79-72 win thanks to big nights from Howell (22 points), Hosket (18) and Sorenson (14).
The win set up a date with No. 3 ranked Kentucky on its home court in Memorial Coliseum where it was undefeated that season. The Buckeyes built a modest 44-40 halftime lead which climbed to an 8-point cushion at 54-46 before the Wildcats began chipping away as Taylor was forced to strategically deploy Hosket after picking up his fourth foul with 7:32 left in regulation. Kentucky would eventually take a 1-point lead but with just five seconds left and OSU with possession under its own basket, Hosket found Sorenson of the inbounds and "Sunshine" promptly buried a 5-footer off the glass with two seconds left to complete the stunning upset.
Sorenson's game-winner gave him a team-high 22 points on the night while Hosket added 21 points and 12 boards and Howell contributed 20 and 7. The ever-cranky Rupp skipped the postgame presser and Ohio State advanced to the Final Four.
"Some say we were good, some say we were lucky, all I know is we're in L.A. and Rupp is still in Kentucky."– Line from a poem written by OSU guard Bruce Schnabel after OSU's stunning upset victory
The 1968 Final Four was staged in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum where the Buckeyes would face No. 4 ranked North Carolina while the other matchup saw the No. 1 ranked Houston Cougars take on John Wooden's vaunted (and heavily paid) UCLA Bruins.
The Buckeyes had no answer for the Tar Heels in this one, falling 80-66, by way of 35% shooting. OSU led 27-24 in the first half but North Carolina went on a 10-0 from there to take a 34-27 lead at intermission. Hosket fouled out with nine minutes left in regulation and while the Buckeyes cut the deficit to eight points with about six minutes left, the Tar Heels countered with a 6-0 run and coasted to victory. Jody Finney paced the Buckeyes with 16 points, Hosket chipped in 14 and Howell added 13. North Carolina's Charlie Scott, the father of eventual OSU point guard Shannon Scott, scored 13 points as one of five Tar Heels in double figures.
The loss sent the Buckeyes into the NCAA Tournament's third-place / consolation game (which remained a thing through the 1981 season) where they faced Houston after the Cougars were destroyed by UCLA, 101-69, marking their first loss of the season (31-1).
Ohio State would hand the Cougars a second-straight loss and earn a third-place finish in the tournament with an 89-85 victory. Pretty amazing stuff when you think back to the preseason predictions having the team buried at the bottom of the Big Ten.
Bill Hosket battles for a rebound in OSU's win over Houston to capture third place in the '68 Dance. (Malcolm Emmons-Imagn Images)
Sorenson broke an 85-85 tie with a pair of free throws with 15 seconds left and Hosket provided the game's final margin seven seconds later converting his own pair from the stripe. Elvin Hayes scored 34 points (on 34 shots) for the Cougars while Howell led OSU with 26 points and 13 rebounds. Hosket added a 19/17 double-double and Sorenson finished with 19 points and seven boards.
The victory pushed Ohio State's record to 21-8 capping what would be Taylor's final trip to the Final Four (OSU's 7th).
Hosket led the team with averages of 20.1 points and 11.4 rebounds and his 20 double-doubles still stand as the 6th-most by a Buckeye in a single season. Howell finished with averages of 17.5 points and 5.4 rebounds while Sorenson went for 16.3 and 10.0 per contest.
The improbable run became even more special over time as Ohio State fans had to wait another 31 years to watch an OSU team reach the Final Four, a trick turned by the 1999 squad led by Scoonie Penn and Michael Redd.
