Examining Ohio State Basketball Seasons the Year After Missing the NCAA Tournament

Ohio State has plenty of work left to do if it wants to make the NCAA tournament. The Buckeyes don’t quite need a miracle yet, but they certainly need to have things go their way down the stretch in order to put themselves in position.

The more realistic outcome? Ohio State winds up in the NIT this season.

It would be a disappointing outcome, of course, and one Buckeye fans haven’t seen much of since Thad Matta became the head coach way back in 2004. Matta has missed the NCAA tournament just twice in his first 11 seasons at the helm in Columbus (Ohio State was ineligible for postseason play in his first year) so if the Buckeyes were to miss it this season, that would be the third time in 12 years. The last time Ohio State missed the NCAA tournament was the 2007-08 season.

But coming into this season, there were so many unknowns about the Buckeyes that the NCAA tournament should not have been expected. A goal? Sure. But to consider this season a failure if Ohio State does not wind up making the tournament would be a bit of a stretch.

It’s well-documented about the youth on this year’s roster for the Buckeyes. That inexperience showed early on as Ohio State stumbled to a 2-4 record to start the season and endured a four-game losing streak that included a pair of home losses to mid-major teams.

But as the season progressed, the Buckeyes showed improvement. Ohio State somewhat salvaged what was a disastrous start and turned it into a respectable season as it currently sits at 15-10 overall and 7-5 in the Big Ten.

And while the NCAA tournament may not seem likely at this point, and this has no doubt been a season filled with plenty of ups and downs, Matta sees the payoff coming. Whether it be at the end of this season or in the very near future, there's a lot to like going forward.

“Yeah, I do,” he said Monday. “In two years, we could be sitting here talking about the exact same team with the exception of one, plus the guys that we’re adding, and that is a little bit rewarding, I think, in what we’re doing.”

And because this year’s Ohio State team is about building for the future, we can look ahead to see how other teams in the program’s history fared the year after missing the NCAA tournament.

Over the last 20 seasons, dating back to 1995-96, the Buckeyes missed the NCAA tournament seven times. It happened in each of the final two years of Randy Ayers’ tenure and three times under Jim O’Brien before happening twice to Matta in his first 11 seasons — one of which, as we mentioned, was because Ohio State was ineligible due to NCAA sanctions that occurred under O'Brien.

The Buckeyes missed the tournament in O’Brien’s first season, but the following year went to the Final Four — an accomplishment that was later vacated due to the aforementioned sanctions. In O’Brien’s final two seasons, Ohio State missed the tournament both times.

That led to Matta’s hiring prior to the 2004-05 season. The Buckeyes could not play in the postseason in that year, but a 26-6 campaign and a Big Ten regular-season championship followed that the very next season. Ohio State fell to Georgetown in the second round of the NCAA tournament that year.

The Buckeyes again missed the tournament in 2007-08 as they were considered one of the biggest “snubs” by many. Ohio State went on to win the NIT that season and then the following year made the NCAA tournament after a 22-11 campaign.

What does this all mean, exactly? Well, not much when it relates to the Buckeyes’ immediate future. It does show, however, that under Matta, Ohio State made the NCAA tournament the following season both times after missing.

So while this year has certainly been a difficult one for Buckeye fans, there is a silver lining. The entire team returns next season and all but Marc Loving could be back the year after that.

Expectations should absolutely be higher in 2016-17.