It didn’t compute for Chris Holtmann initially.
“What do you mean seed?” he said.
Twelve minutes into his press conference after Ohio State beat Iowa, a reporter asked him what seed he thought his team would be in the NCAA tournament. Chris Holtmann tilted his head to the side, looking at someone outside of the Zoom camera frame who tried to explain it to him, when finally he understood.
“Oh, you mean... Oh, what do I think our seed is? I have no idea,” Holtmann said.
Too much has to happen between the top-10 win against the Hawkeyes a week ago and Selection Sunday on March 14 for Holtmann to spend every waking moment thinking about postseason scenarios.
That’s what folks like Joe Lunardi exist to do.
The ESPN-appointed bracketologist bumped the Buckeyes up to a No. 1 overall seed in his latest bracket shortly after they went on the road to beat Maryland on Monday. And he’s not alone. Bracket Matrix, a website that aggregates the bracket projections from dozens of analysts, found Ohio State's average seed to be 1.53, good for the fourth-highest No. 1 seed.
Those who currently see the Buckeyes as a No. 1 seed aren’t just prisoners of the moment who have watched the Buckeyes rattle off eight wins in their last nine games. At this point, Ohio State’s resume leaves just a little room for debate. It holds an overall record of 16-4, including a 10-4 mark within the Big Ten and a nation-most nine Quadrant 1 victories. Holtmann's squad has beaten Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Rutgers (twice) and UCLA. Its success up to this point has made even the eyebrows of its own fourth-year head coach rise.
“I don't think you ever anticipate in this league winning whatever it's been, six out of seven, seven out of eight, eight out of nine, whatever it's been,” Holtmann said. “I don't think you ever anticipate that. And on top of that, I thought we had a bit of a bumpy non-conference season, for those of you that saw us early, but a clean one nonetheless. But it was bumpy. I don't mind admitting and saying I felt optimistic about this group, but I'm also not going to ignore the fact that there is some surprise in terms of I think we've gelled in a quicker way. We've also seen really good players emerge into really good players. But you don't always know if that's going to happen.”
What the Buckeyes have done up to this point deservedly puts them on the one line in bracket projections next to Gonzaga, Baylor and Michigan.
To stay there, though, they’ll need to have one heck of a finish.
“We have the hardest schedule that I've been a part of in this final four-week stretch,” Holtmann said after beating Iowa.
He’s not kidding.
Three of Ohio State’s final six games of the regular season are high-profile matchups against teams both ranked inside the top-15 by Associated Press poll voters and top-five of KenPom’s ratings. The other three upcoming opponents reside on the NCAA tournament bubble.
First up is Indiana on Saturday. The 10-8 Hoosiers will come to Columbus as an underdog, yet they've already knocked off Iowa twice, have taken Illinois and Wisconsin to overtime and feature potential first-team All-Big Ten big man Trayce Jackson-Davis. Next in line will be a road matchup against a 7-9 Penn State team a week from now. The Buckeyes eked out an 83-79 win at home against the Nittany Lions two weeks ago, and soon they'll look to sweep the season series in Happy Valley.
A showdown with Michigan at the Schottenstein Center tips off on Feb. 21, and it could have Big Ten title implications. If Ohio State stays hot and knocks off the No. 3 Wolverines, it would cut into the Wolverines’ current stranglehold on the conference championship race. But doing so isn’t an easy task. Led by 7-foot-2 freshman Hunter Dickinson, forward Isaiah Livers and ascending sophomore Franz Wagner, Juwan Howard’s Michigan team was in the midst of stamping itself as a national championship contender before the athletic department went on pause.
Ohio State then goes on the road for a rematch with Michigan State, which it clocked in the form of a 79-62 home win two weeks ago. This time, however, Tom Izzo’s team won't be coming right off a COVID-19-related layoff.
Home games with No. 15 Iowa and No. 6 Illinois – both of which suffered recent losses at the hands of Ohio State – round out the regular season slate. Following them, the Buckeyes will have to go through the Big Ten tournament before even reaching Selection Sunday.
With numerous tough tests still ahead before the NCAA tournament gets underway, it should make sense why Holtmann continues to preach the process and continual improvement. As much as this team has achieved in the past month and a half, there’s still plenty of time for things to go sideways if he doesn’t keep it on track. For his part, Duane Washington Jr. doesn’t seem too worried about that happening.
“Our guys are really bought in,” Washington said on Monday. “I said it last week, I'm going to say it again this week: We're just really locked in and just really trying to get better every single day, man. We're doing a really good job working hard and staying with each other, staying connected and trusting what we've got going on here. It's paying off. We're going to keep grinding. We've got a great team coming to our house on Saturday, so we're going to get back to work as soon as we get back, watch the film, analyze it, learn about it, forget about it and move on.”
Even with Washington as confident as ever, the Buckeyes’ upcoming slate won’t go overlooked. Games against the Hoosiers, Nittany Lions, Wolverines, Spartans, Hawkeyes, Illini and whoever they face in the conference tournament await.
Ohio State might be a No. 1 seed on projections right now. It deserves the spot and simultaneously has to know the placement doesn’t matter at all in mid-February.
If the Buckeyes are still a top seed come March 14, based on what's coming up, you can know they damn sure will have earned it.
