Ohio State’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in three years is within reach with five weeks to go.
Ohio State’s NCAA Tournament hopes were on the operating table two weeks ago, in need of emergency resuscitation after a 77-76 home loss to Indiana dropped them to 10-8 overall and 2-5 in the Big Ten. With Mackey Arena staring them in the face, things looked grim.
Since then, the Buckeyes have won three in a row and are back to an even 5-5 in Big Ten play. They’ll head to Illinois next, where they’ll try to improve their 3-3 road record this season and pick up their fifth Quad-1 win of the season. Regardless of the result on Sunday, KenPom currently gives Ohio State better than a 50% chance to win eight of their final 10 games.
Most websites and NCAA Tournament models are projecting Ohio State to be either a 10 or 11-seed at the moment, often times slotting them into the First Four in Dayton. If that happened, it would be the first time that Ohio State started the NCAA Tournament in Dayton since the field expanded from 64 to 68 teams in 2011.
Ohio State’s resume is heavily weighted by wins over Kentucky and Purdue, and benefits from the fact that it has no bad losses so far. The Buckeyes’ two Quad-2 losses to Pittsburgh and Indiana have come by a combined two points. The loss to Pitt was a Quad-1 loss in November, but the Panthers have gone 7-5 since then and have slid to 34 in the NET.
Jake Diebler’s team is currently 28 in the NET. Ohio State is the only team in the top-40 with more than seven losses.
Here’s what 15 bracketologists have the Buckeyes sitting as of January 30th. Many of these sites have not updated their predictions since last night’s 83-64 win over Penn State, so some may move Ohio State up a line when they release updates.
131 Sports
Ohio State is an 11-seed facing 6-seed St. John’s
The Athletic
Ohio State is an 11-seed facing 11-seed San Diego State in a play-in game
Bleacher Report
Ohio State is an 11-seed facing 11-seed Drake in a play-in game
Big Underdog
Ohio State is an 11-seed facing 11-seed UC Irvine in a play-in game
Charlie Hergenrother
Ohio State is a 10-seed facing 7-seed St. John’s
Heat Check
Ohio State is a 10-seed facing 7-seed Utah State
HaslaMetrics
Ohio State is an 11-seed facing 11-seed UCF in a play-in game
InCCStats
Ohio State is an 8-seed facing 9-seed BYU
Hoops HD
Ohio State is an 11-seed facing 11-seed Texas in a play-in game
Washington Post
Ohio State is an 11-seed facing 6-seed Arizona
Bracketeer/Rocco Miller
Ohio State is the seventh team out of the NCAA Tournament
SB Nation
Ohio State is a 10-seed facing 7-seed Missouri
Bart Torvik
Ohio State is a 10-seed facing 7-seed UCLA
USA Today
Ohio State is an 11-seed facing 11-seed UCF in a play-in game
JSB
Ohio State is a 10-seed facing 7-seed Michigan