Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but Ohio State lost again—this time eliminating itself from the NCAA Tournament bubble.
The Buckeyes dropped Wednesday night’s game against the Iowa Hawkeyes, 77-70. They needed this win to have, quite literally, any chance of making the NCAA Tournament. The Hawkeyes are not a good team without their big man, and Ohio State found a way to lose in the most unwatchable game you’ll ever see. They came into the game as a five-point favorite and lost it outright—a fitting way to end this miserable season.
They finished the season 17-15 overall, good for 10th place in the Big Ten.
Jake Diebler’s first full season as head coach of this program was a major dud. With a few reasons to be cautiously optimistic heading into the year, all expectations were almost immediately stomped out.
In ESPN’s latest Bracketology, the Buckeyes were projected to be an 11 seed. After Wednesday night’s loss to the Hawkeyes, they can throw that bracket in the garbage. They won’t be dancing—unless they go out for drinks on High Street this March.
This team won’t be going to March Madness just a few short months after their football program dominated the new 12-team College Football Playoff to win its first national title since 2015. While Buckeyes fans can still hold their heads high because of the football program, the ineptitude of the basketball team has been on display for years.
It felt like the program finally had life when they made the long-anticipated move to fire Chris Holtmann last season. Diebler gave the Buckeyes new life during his interim stint as head coach and seemed best fit to lead the program moving forward.
The bar was not even particularly high for this team: Be watchable. Emulate some of the fun that Diebler created late last season. Guess that was too much to ask for.
Their season ended by losing two winnable games—against Iowa and Indiana on Saturday. That was the tale of the entire season: coming up completely flat, even in the absence of expectations.
There’s no real end in sight for this program continuing to wander the desert. Do they fire Diebler after one disappointing season? Realistically, probably not. Do they have the ability to allure top high school recruits and transfers? Maybe—it is Ohio State, after all. But there’s little reason to believe those players will develop at all upon arriving in Columbus.
The basketball team appears to be the polar opposite of the football program. Despite its ugly loss to Michigan, the football team persevered. The only thing left for Buckeyes basketball to persevere is the NIT.
