While this year’s Ohio State men’s basketball team suffered a quick and disappointing finish to the Big Ten basketball tournament in Indianapolis on March 12, things were completely the opposite 15 years ago for the Buckeyes.
Ohio State had already won the Big Ten regular-season championship but almost made as abrupt a departure from the conference tournament as its 2025 counterpart. In their first game of the event, the Buckeyes needed one of the more famous plays in OSU basketball history to advance to the semifinals. Evan Turner drained a shot from just inside midcourt with under a second to play to give the Buckeyes a 69-68 win over Michigan.
“We were going to put it in Evan’s hands,” said Ohio State coach Thad Matta. “We told him, ‘Get it up there as quick as you can.’ He knew how far he could get. They gave him a running start, which was good for us, and he made a great, great play.”
The Buckeyes would go on to beat Illinois in double overtime – the first multi-overtime game in Big Ten tournament history – 88-81, and No. 6 seed Minnesota, 90-61, in the final to secure both ends of the conference championship.
Interestingly, the 2010 women’s basketball team also turned in an opposite performance from the 2025 team at its conference tournament. While this year’s team was sent packing in a 75-46 blowout at the hands of UCLA in Ohio State’s second game of the tourney, the 2010 squad defeated Illinois, 66-55, Wisconsin, 82-73, and Iowa, 66-64, to secure its second straight tournament championship, to go along with the regular-season crown.
The following stories are reprinted from the March 20, 2010, edition of Buckeye Sports Bulletin.
