Ohio State Misses NCAA Tournament For Third Straight Season
After ending its season losing five of its last seven games, Ohio State has officially missed out on the NCAA tournament for the third consecutive season.
As expected, the Buckeyes were left out of the 68-team field released live on CBS on Sunday. They were listed as one of the last four teams out of the tournament by the NCAA Men’s Selection Committee during the broadcast, along with West Virginia, Indiana and Boise State.
Ohio State likely fell out of NCAA tournament contention in the eyes of the Selection Committee due to its poor finish to the season. After sitting firmly in the field according to many projected brackets following a double-overtime win over Nebraska on March 4, the Buckeyes dropped their final two games in uninspiring fashion, first falling to Indiana 66-60 at Assembly Hall on March 8 after squandering a 10-point second-half lead, then losing to Iowa 77-70 in the first round of the Big Ten tournament after missed 13 of their final 15 shots.
“It definitely hurts, I’m not going to fake my emotions,” junior point guard Bruce Thornton said after the game in the team’s locker room. “But the more connected team won. Iowa had a great game plan. When they made a mistake, they got it right back, so all credit to them. On certain plays, we just could’ve been better. We just lost to the better team today.”
With the Buckeyes now out of the NCAA tournament field for the time in as many seasons, they could be bound to appear in different postseason competition this spring if they opt to play. Sitting at No. 41 in the country in the NET rankings, which is the highest rating out of any non-tournament team, Ohio State does qualify for the brand-new 16-team College Basketball Crown tournament, which takes the top two teams from the Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 who did not make the NCAA tournament field based on NET rankings.
However, it has yet to be determined whether Diebler’s team will participate. Diebler and several Buckeye players said after the Iowa game that they have not thought about playing in the College Basketball Crown and would discuss how to move forward as a team once they returned to Columbus.
“We got to get back to Columbus and sit down and kind of reflect and talk,” Diebler said. “I know there’s a lot of unknown right now, so it’s hard to hard to make any firm decisions on anything. We got to wait and see what happens here the next couple days. I haven’t really given that any thought up to (this point) obviously, I know we got some things to think about now moving forward.”
“Whatever the team does, I’ll play with the team,” sophomore forward Devin Royal said. “Whatever we do. I do.”