The Buckeyes’ backs are against the wall.
They’ve done just enough to be teetering on the edge of the NCAA Tournament bubble with the book closed on college basketball’s regular season but failed to do enough down the stretch to make their standing secure. Now, there’s work to do in the Big Ten Tournament.
Set to face Iowa on Wednesday in the first round, Ohio State likely needs at least one and possibly multiple wins in its conference tourney to go dancing for the first time in three years.
“We need to control what we can control, and that's Wednesday's game,” coach Jake Diebler said. “Iowa is gonna play their best ball of the year, we’re anticipating that we need to do the same. Our focus right now is on Wednesday, and that's it. We know this is a big game for all the obvious reasons. There's no hiding from that, but we need to play well.”
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A surprising number of bracketologists still have the Buckeyes in the NCAA Tournament despite their 17-14 overall record with losses in four of their last six games. Eighty-seven of the 109 projections aggregated by the Bracket Matrix place Ohio State among the field of 68 teams, though the average of those predictions has it as a 12 seed and one of the last at-large bids.
The Buckeyes still have a NET ranking of 36th and six Quad 1 victories, tied for the 22nd-most in the country. They’ve played the 16th-toughest schedule in college basketball. But with bid stealers still likely to emerge from conference tournament season, they need to build on their case this week.
“I think our résumé is good,” Diebler said. “Certainly, we've had some opportunities where we could have enhanced it even more, but our strength of schedule, the quality of wins, the Quad 1 wins we have, all of that stuff stacks up in a really, really good way. So, you know, it's life on the bubble right? Every game is important. We know that. But there's also a Big Ten Tournament Championship that somebody's gonna win and we want to give our best shot at that too.”
Ohio State’s most recent outing at Indiana, a 66-60 loss, didn’t inspire a ton of confidence that it’s capable of making a run at a Big Ten title as Diebler is striving for.
The Buckeyes lost a double-digit second-half lead and failed to make a field goal in the final five minutes and 55 seconds of the game. Star guards Bruce Thornton and John Mobley Jr. combined to shoot 5-of-21 from the field, and issues that have plagued centers Sean Stewart and Aaron Bradshaw all season continued.
Stewart fouled out for the seventh time this season, again limiting his contributions as one of Ohio State’s few interior rebounders and defenders. Bradshaw played 15 minutes and collected just one rebound, emblematic of a season that’s seen him dip from 9.6 boards per 40 minutes as a freshman at Kentucky to 6.1 this year. 6-foot-6 Ohio State guard Micah Parrish nearly matches the 7-footer’s rebounding rate with 5.7 rebounds per 40 minutes.
“We were disappointed because we played well enough to win for majority of that game and it felt like, ultimately, the result was impacted by some controllable things,” Diebler said of the Indiana loss. “I think oftentimes that adds to the frustration after a loss, when you feel like there were some things that we could have done better, that we had an opportunity to do better.”
“Our focus right now is on Wednesday, and that's it. We know this is a big game for all the obvious reasons.”– Jake Diebler on the stakes of Ohio State's game against Iowa
Diebler said that Bradshaw and Stewart can do a better job picking their spots and being aggressive when they touch the ball in the paint, and he wants to see more offensive rebounds plus better screens from the duo. Ohio State could improve collectively in its defensive rebounding from the Indiana loss, too, as the Hoosiers hauled in 14 offensive boards.
“Got confidence in those guys,” Diebler said. “It's consistency that's been the biggest thing for those two, and I’ve got no reason to believe they won't step up here this week.”
Iowa, the 15th seed in the Big Ten Tournament, will present an opportunity for Ohio State to add a Quad 2 win to its résumé. The Buckeyes should enter that game with confidence, considering they beat Iowa 82-65 in January. The Hawkeyes also lack the services of star center Owen Freeman, their leading scorer and rebounder with 16.7 points and 6.7 boards per game. However, they still possess the threat of guard Payton Sandfort, who’s racked up 16.3 points per game this year. Fellow guard Josh Dix adds 14.1 points and shoots 42.5% from 3.
As a team, Iowa is 26th nationally with a 3-point shooting rate of 37.7%. Perimeter defense will be key for Ohio State.
“They play a unique system,” Diebler said. “It's unique to our league with their motion offense. They play with great pace. They're a different team than when we played them (last time), Freeman is no longer playing. He was a big part of what they were doing offensively that time of the year, so they've shifted some of that and they got some veterans who have been in big games like this before.”
Should the Buckeyes make it past Iowa in the first round, they’ll face seventh-seeded Illinois in the second round on Thursday. The Fighting Illini beat the Buckeyes 87-79 in Champaign earlier this year but will present Ohio State with a chance for its seventh Quad 1 win. If Ohio State can beat Illinois, a rematch with second-seeded Michigan awaits.
As Ohio State looks to make a run in Indianapolis, Diebler is taking solace in his team’s more proven scoring options – Thornton, Mobley, Devin Royal and Parrish – and the stretches of good defensive basketball the Buckeyes have played this year.
Iowa
Hawkeyes
“I think we have great versatility offensively,” Diebler said. “We have multiple guys who are capable of having a big night. We've shown that. And then I think we've played with a toughness and a connectedness defensively that has really propelled us in some games. We're capable of that, we've shown we're capable of (both) and we're certainly going to need both of those this week. And I also think there's a ceiling we haven't reached from a bench production standpoint.”
Tipoff between Ohio State and Iowa is set for approximately 6 p.m. on Wednesday, or 25 minutes after the 3:30 p.m. game before theirs ends. The game will be streamed on Peacock.
