For the fourth straight season, Ohio State made the NCAA tournament on Sunday. The Buckeyes were a No. 4 seed in region 3 in Birmingham and will face off against No. 13 seed Montana State on Friday at Value City Arena. Because the Buckeyes received a No. 4 seed, they will host the first-round game and a potential second-round matchup that could include No. 5- seed Tennessee.
“We’re really happy to be hosting and giving our players a chance to play in front of our great fans again,” head coach Kevin McGuff said during a media availability on Sunday. “I know we’ll have a great environment and so we’re looking forward to that.”
Montana State enters Columbus with 30 wins, including a one-point victory over Montana in the finals of the Big Sky Tournament. The Bobcats played two games against Power-Four opponents in the regular season, and lost their first contest 72-53 to Utah Nov. 24, but defeated UCF five days later 76-68.
“We’ll start with Montana State. Obviously, I know they won their conference, and they’re used to winning, and I haven’t watched any film on them yet, but we’ll start that process tonight, and I think it’s a very difficult bracket,” McGuff said. “There’s a lot of great teams, so we’ll take it one game at a time.”
Elsewhere in the region, Texas is the No. 1 seed, and would likely be the Buckeyes’ opponent if they were to make it to the Sweet 16, while TCU and Notre Dame are on the other side of the region as No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, respectively.
Ohio State, who enters the NCAA tournament with a record of 25-6, was included in both of the NCAA committee’s top-16 seed list previews, making its No. 4 seed no surprise.
The Buckeyes come into the tournament off of one of their worst games of the season, a 75-46 loss to UCLA in the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The 29-point defeat was Ohio State’s largest loss of the season, and the 46 points scored by the Buckeyes was also their lowest total of the season.
As ugly as the defeat to the Bruins was, the Buckeyes’ 25-win season earned them a chance to make a run in the NCAA tournament. Still, one more slip-up from the Buckeyes means not just the end of the season, but for seniors like Taylor Thierry the end of a collegiate career.
“Now it’s win or go home,” Thierry said after Ohio State’s loss to UCLA. “For some of us, it’s our last season, so we just have to take every opportunity we have and take advantage of it and just play hard.”
