Stop us if you have heard this before, but Ohio State lost again – this time eliminates itself from the NCAA tournament bubble.
Buckeyes dropped Wednesday night’s game against Iowa Hawkeyes, 77-70. They needed this victory, quite literally, all the chances of doing the NCAA tournament. Hawkeyes is not a good team but their big man, and Ohio State found a way to lose in the most invisible game you will ever see. They entered the game as a five-point favorite and lost the direct-a suitable way to end this miserable season.
They ended the 17-15 season in total, good for 10th place in Big Ten.
Jake Dieble’s first full season as head coach for this program was a great dud. With a few reasons to be carefully optimistic on the way into the year, all expectations were almost immediately out.
In ESPN’s latest Bracketology, Buckeyes was projected to be a 11 seed. After Wednesday night’s loss to Hawkeyes, they can throw that console in the garbage. They won’t dance – unless they go out for drinks on High Street in March.
This team will not march Madness just a few short months after their football program dominated the new 12-team college football game to win their first national title since 2015. While Buckeye’s fans can still keep their heads high because of the football program, the Basketball’s inability has been shown for several years.
It felt like the program finally had life when they made the long -awaited step to shoot Chris Holtmann last season. Diebler gave Buckeye’s new life during his interim coach as head coach and seemed best fitting to lead the program forward.
The bar was not even very high for this team: be viewed. Emulate some of the fun that Diebler created late last season. Guess it was too much to ask for.
Their season ended with losing two winning games – against Iowa and Indiana on Saturday. It was the story for the whole season: came completely flat, even in the absence of expectations.
There is no real end in sight because this program continues to wander in the desert. Do they fire Diebler after a disappointing season? Realistically, probably not. Do they have the ability to attract colleges and transfers? Maybe – after all, it’s Ohio State. But there is little reason to believe that these players will develop at all when they arrive in Columbus.
The basketball team seems to be the polar opposite of the football program. Despite his ugly loss to Michigan, the football team continued. The only thing left for Buckeye’s basketball to continue is nit.
