Even with the great late-season run that saw the Buckeyes turn an otherwise dark season around, Sunday's results came as no shock.
Ohio State was not one of the 68 teams selected to participate in the NCAA Tournament Sunday evening. Its run to win six of its last eight games ultimately proved insufficient to give the Buckeyes a bid to college basketball's championship bracket.
It's the first time since the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons – its last two years under Thad Matta – that Ohio State has missed the Big Dance in back-to-back seasons. The only other time this century that Ohio State missed consecutive tournaments was when the Buckeyes failed to go three years in a row from 2002-03 to 2004-05.
To even be loosely involved in the bubble conversation for the NCAA Tournament is a testament to the turnaround the Buckeyes produced this campaign. After a 12-2 start, Ohio State lost nine of 11 games including its second blown 18-point second-half lead of the season in a Quadrant 3 loss against Indiana.
Head coach Chris Holtmann was fired on Feb. 14. Four days later in its first game under then-interim head coach Jake Diebler, Ohio State shocked then-No. 2 Purdue to get its first real dose of momentum since December.
A loss in its following contest at Minnesota brought the Buckeyes back to earth only for them to be shot into the stratosphere once more with a buzzer-beater win at Michigan State on Feb. 25. The victory snapped a 17-game road losing streak for the team, the longest in program history.
It also launched a four-game winning streak for Ohio State to close its regular season, one extended to five games with a second-round victory in the Big Ten Tournament over Iowa. Many bracketologists thought a quarterfinal win over Illinois – who went on to win the Big Ten Tournament – would put the Buckeyes squarely in the conversation for an at-large NCAA tourney bid, but OSU fell short by a mere three points in that game, 77-74.
Even that might not have been enough to backdoor the Buckeyes into the Big Dance given the number of bid-stealing teams in conference tournaments nationwide. N.C. State (ACC), Duquesne (A-10), UAB (AAC) and Oregon (Pac-12) were among the teams who earned extra NCAA Tournament bids for their conferences by winning their respective conference tournaments.
The Buckeyes, who have an overall record of 20-13, didn't have a high enough NET Ranking (49th) or a good enough record in Quadrant 2 games (3-5) to compete along the bubble. Three of the final four teams into the tournament had top-40 NET rankings: Colorado (25th), Boise State (27th) and Colorado State (36th).
Virginia, the other of the last four teams in, had a better overall record (23-10) and far superior Q2 record (8-3) to Ohio State, despite a lower NET ranking of 54th.
While Ohio State won't be participating in the NCAA Tournament, six other schools from the Big Ten will be. Purdue earned one of the tournament’s four No. 1 seeds. The Boilermakers are joined by Illinois (3-seed), Wisconsin (5-seed), Nebraska (8-seed), Northwestern (9-seed) and Michigan State (9-seed) in the field of 68.
The Buckeyes will now have to decide whether to accept an invitation to the NIT, with the selection show for that tournament slated to begin at 9:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
