Ohio State Men's Basketball No Longer Has Any Margin for Error

Actually, we've been here every season since 2013. That's the last time that the Ohio State men's basketball team won either a regular season conference title, a conference tournament title, or advanced past the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Like Thad Matta before him, Chris Holtmann has been chasing that level of success ever since. And it's important to contextualize that success; from 2009 to 2013, the Buckeyes won the conference regular season title three times, the conference tournament three times, and finished at least in the Sweet Sixteen every year (making the Final Four in 2012). Ohio State hadn't made the Elite Eight in back to back years since the 1960's, but they did it during that run.

That probably isn't going to be replicated anytime soon. For one, the Big Ten is more competitive than it has been in a long time, and secondly, Ohio State is less competitive. The issue of Chris Holtmann's employment is an argument for another day, but that just makes the impending postseason loom all the larger for both him and an Ohio State team badly in need of some kind of prestige.

And prestige is hard to come by after an intermittently disappointing regular season! The Buckeyes might have steered out of a skid with a surprise win against Michigan State, but the gut-punch of losses to Maryland and Nebraska means that even a final regular-season win against an equally confounding Michigan Wolverines team probably won't be enough to declare the 2021-22 regular season any kind of real accomplishment.

So what's left? Well, the chances of Ohio State getting a two-game reprieve in the Big Ten Tournament still exist, but are fleetingly small. But hell, last years' Buckeye team knows that a nice and cozy seeding isn't a guarantee of safety in any single-elimination tournament situation anyway.

There is no longer any margin for error.

One of the great things about college sports is getting to watch the evolution of a team of players with raw talent as they benefit from both experience and coaching in real time. Seeing the emergence of a Malaki Branham, for instance, is thrilling not just because it's something unexpected, but because it represents the potential for greatness. That's part of what keeps us watching through the ups and downs of the regular season, even through unbelievably dumb losses to 15 point underdogs. The idea that at some point everything will come together into something truly special.

The Ohio State Buckeyes might not be there. The available personnel and inconsistent overall team play could hamper them going into season-ending tournament time, but This Is March. E.J. Liddell needs to continue to play at a ridiculously high level. Branham can't afford to have an off night. Zed Key and Kyle Young need to get healthy and play well. Joey Brunk... might need to contribute like he did against Michigan State (okay, yes, that one is weird)?If Holtmann and company are going to coalesce into something special, now is the only time to do it despite whatever issues the team might have in general.

This probably isn't news to even casual observers of the Buckeyes, but this season feels different. In his fifth year as Ohio State's head coach, Chris Holtmann's teams have come close to cutting down the nets exactly once, in last season's Big Ten Tournament where they lost a close championship game to Illinois in overtime. That's not enough anymore. Even with a great incoming freshman recruiting class, there is more pressure than ever for Holtmann to deliver some kind of hardware to Columbus.

Achieving that is no longer a nice bonus after a successful season. With this kind of talent, it is the only indicator of one.