There is a bit of chatter currently surrounding Ohio State and its NCAA tournament chances. None of it, however, is coming from the Buckeyes' players or coaches.
At least not publicly, anyway.
On the eve of Ohio State’s biggest game of the season, junior Marc Loving, sophomore Keita Bates-Diop and coach Thad Matta addressed the media at Value City Arena. The overwhelming message from all three was pretty much exactly the same.
“We’re just focused on Tuesday and just giving it our best,” Loving said. “We’ll see what comes out from there.”
The Buckeyes host sixth-ranked Michigan State on Tuesday in the first of three key games to end the year. Ohio State will also host Iowa on Sunday before traveling to Michigan State a week from Saturday for a rematch with the Spartans to close out the regular-season.
Michigan State, as the No. 6-ranked team in the country, is not only safely in the NCAA tournament, but the Spartans are a true contender to get to the Final Four in Houston. The Buckeyes, though, are currently in a drastically different position.
Ohio State is 18-10 overall and, somewhat surprisingly, in fourth place in the Big Ten standings at 10-5. But, as it stands right now, the Buckeyes are not in the NCAA tournament field and they’re not really on the bubble yet, either.
That’s because nine of Ohio State’s 10 wins in the league have come against teams that won’t be in the NCAA tournament; the Buckeyes are just 1-5 within the league against NCAA tournament-caliber teams. Add that to the fact Ohio State had only one key win in the nonconference and was just 8-5 before Big Ten play started, it’s not hard to see why the Buckeyes are currently on the outside looking in.
But over the last two weeks Ohio State has won four-straight games. And, while the Buckeyes haven’t necessarily helped themselves a ton over that stretch by picking up any quality wins, they also haven't hurt themselves and been eliminated from NCAA tournament contention.
And, even though, Matta and Co. do not want to talk about it, the reality of the situation is Ohio State has set itself up with a chance to play itself into the conversation for an NCAA tournament bid over the last two weeks of the regular season.
"I think to look ahead or look behind wouldn’t do us much good," Matta said. "I think the focus has to be on us and having a great practice and I just want to go out and play well [Tuesday] night and at the conclusion of [Tuesday] night’s game take a deep breath and get ready for [Sunday’s] game.”
The overwhelming consensus is the Buckeyes need to win at least two of these last three to join the conversation as an NCAA tournament bubble team. Should Ohio State accomplish that feat, it would have four quality wins on its NCAA tournament resume — two of which would be against top-10 teams. With two of those games coming at Value City Arena, it’s not an impossible task. Difficult? Sure. But certainly not impossible.
We’re getting ahead of ourselves, of course, and all of this becomes irrelevant if the Buckeyes don’t take care of business — they’d have to win the Big Ten tournament to make the field if that’s the case — but there’s no denying the opportunities are there for Ohio State.
The first of three chances comes Tuesday against Michigan State.
“I think we’ve come a long way,” Bates-Diop said. “The ups and downs at the beginning of the year, I think when entered the Big Ten we kind of had a different mindset. People didn’t pick us to be where we are anyway so I think just finishing out these last three games are big for us.”
