OSU Shifts Focus To NCAA Tournament After Loss To UCLA

Three days before its final game of the regular season, the NCAA Committee delivered encouraging news to Ohio State by featuring it in the final top 16 seeds preview list. The Buckeyes slipped right into the committee’s top-16 seed list as the No. 16 overall seed, meaning they were on track to host first and second-round NCAA tournament games. Since then, though, Ohio State ended its regular season with a 93-90 overtime loss to Maryland March 2, and had a mediocre showing at the Big Ten tournament, which included a 75-46 loss to UCLA March 8, its largest of the season.

ESPN’s Charlie Creme still projected Ohio State as a No. 4 seed after its loss to UCLA. In Creme’s projection, the Buckeyes would host No. 13 seed Green Bay in the first round at Value City Arena.

Even more pressing than the Buckeyes’ chances of hosting their first two tournament games for head coach Kevin McGuff is getting his team to respond from arguably its worst performance of the season against UCLA.

“We need really good, focused practices,” McGuff said after Ohio State’s loss to UCLA. “I’m a big believer in you play how you practice. So we need to get — we’ll take a couple days off, but we need to have a great week here coming up. Then next Sunday we’ll figure out who we’re playing and what the path looks like and start to prepare. Really it’s got to start with really focused, spirited practices.”

The good news for McGuff is that his team will have a full week to prepare before Selection Sunday. However, if Ohio State does end up as either a 4 or 5 seed, they could face a No. 1 seed as early as the Sweet 16.

The Buckeyes won their first 17 games of the season, but later on in three games against two of the best teams in the country, UCLA and USC, they were outscored by an average of 21 points.

On paper, Ohio State’s best win of the regular season was against then No.8-ranked Maryland, but in that game, the Terrapins were without star guard Shyanne Sellers Jr, who tallied 21 points when the two teams met again in the regular season finale.

According to McGuff though, the marquee win missing from his team’s résumé is not something he is going to spend too much time thinking about.

“We are where we are, so we won’t dwell on that,” McGuff said when asked about Ohio State’s inability to defeat the Big Ten’s two best teams. “More so, what can we do right now to make sure we’re as prepared as possible when we get an opponent in our path.”

The Buckeyes have faced plenty of hardships in the postseason in the last 12 months. After losing their first game in the Big Ten tournament by 21 points in the 2023-24 season, the Buckeyes were bounced out of the NCAA tournament in the second round, losing to Duke  75-63.

With a 25-6 record, Ohio State has earned an opportunity to bounce back from its loss to UCLA, but senior guard Taylor Thierry knows if her team slips up again early in the NCAA tournament, their season will come to a disappointing end.

“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.”