The Ohio State basketball team has been a polarizing topic over the last month-plus as Ohio State got off to a quick start and then the bottom dropped out.

That does not mean that the analytics still don't like the Buckeyes as Ohio State is still ranked at No. 19 in the NET rankings as of Wednesday afternoon. That is a lot of respect for a seven-loss team.

The Buckeyes got back into the win column this past week with a big win at Northwestern, granted it as not always an easy task to get that road win in Big Ten play.

In this week's edition of the 3-2-1 brought to you by our friends at Hague Water Conditioning, we talk more about this basketball team, what they need to do to string together a winning streak and what the schedule still holds for them. Plus, we talk about NCAA Wrestling for the first time ever in this series and a whole lot more.

1 - Buckeyes get a win on the road

The Buckeyes went to Evanston (Ill.) and walked away with a 12-point win over the Wildcats and get back into the win column.

It was not always pretty as Ohio State only had a three-point lead at halftime and the final score of 71-59 is not necessarily indicative of the totality of the game.

DJ Carton had 17 points off the bench while Justin Ahrens had 12 while the entire bench had 39 points compared to 32 points by the starters.

The trio of Kaleb Wesson, Andre Wesson and Duane Washington were a combined 11-32 from the floor and the Buckeyes were still able to break the 70-point plateau. While it was good news that the Buckeyes were able to find additional avenues for scoring, there has to be come concern that the three guys that you would expect to put up points in bunches struggled to do so, with both Wessons scoring 11 points apiece and Washington scoring eight points.

So what is next for the Buckeyes and their next 11 games? Five of the games are on the road while six are at home and 10 of the 11 games are against teams in the top-50 in the NET rankings.

Needless to say, people who have cast the Buckeyes off as having no shot at the NCAA Tournament are being premature as 105 of 105 mock brackets on BracketMatrix.com have the Buckeyes in the field anywhere from a seven to 11 seed.

But there is 1/3 of the regular season left to play along with a conference tournament still in the cards.

It won't be a walk in the park however Indiana appearing to be the second-easiest game on the schedule (save at Nebraska) as the No. 47 team in the NET. Ohio State lost in Bloomington (Ind.) by 12 points after holding a slim halftime lead and then only putting up 20 points in the second frame to fall by double-digits.

Ohio State knows Indiana well, the Buckeyes know what it takes to be successful against this team. Namely, don't 17-52 from the floor an 11-19 from the line. The Buckeyes were their own worst enemy in that game and that is not taking anything away from what Indiana did, especially with Devonte Green going off after coming off the bench.

The Buckeyes are about as healthy as they have been in awhile outside of losing Musa Jallow for the season and Alonzo Gaffney still dinged up. Kyle Young is largely outside of his window of recovery from appendix surgery and everyone else should be about as healthy as one can be 20 games into the season.

Kaleb Wesson needs to touch the ball more, the Buckeyes have to do a better job of getting the ball inside to the big man, even if he kicks it back outside. Washington is going to continue to assume a secondary scorer role on this team, especially with a chance to redeem himself after a bad outing against IU that saw him relegated to the bench for 32 minutes of action. We will talk more about the IU contest in general in a few minutes, but Ohio State certainly has the pieces to turn things around, but that does not always lead to results but the hope is getting a critical 'must win' on the road may fuel the Buckeyes more than its last win at home did and then subsequently led to a thrashing at Penn State.

2 - Martinez reconfirms

As we told you earlier this week, the Buckeyes got some big news when Cameron Martinez took to social media to announce that he is intending to sign with Ohio State next week after being the one member of the class not to sign in December.

Kerry Coombs is a relentless recruiter and his recent addition to the staff made a huge difference after the departure of Jeff Hafley.

RELATED: More on Martinez reconfirming

Ohio State needed to make a solid hire to hold on to Martinez and Coombs more than fit the bill. Coombs' track record for putting players into the league along with his track record in that state up north both boded well for the Buckeyes.

Ultimately it was the fast relationship that was built between the Coombs and Martinez that made the difference and this is going to make Ohio State's signing day a bit anti-climactic as there should be little drama with Ohio State having most of its class signed.

There is not a whole lot more that we can say about this other than just what a big signing this will be for Ohio State as the Buckeyes have landed the two-time player of the year in the state of Michigan.

3 - Sasso had himself a week

I will be the first one to admit that I don't know a ton about NCAA Wrestling. I grew up in the world of watching that "sports entertainment" brand of wrestling and my only experience in the "pure" sport was a six-week crash course in "Intro to PE" as a freshman in high school where I got tossed around like a rag doll as the smallest kid in the class.

Putting that all aside, I respect the hell out of the Ohio State wrestling program and what it has accomplished through the years. I am right there with many of you watching the telecasts on BTN and often wanting to make the commitment to really learning the sport in greater detail.

I had the chance to watch the last two dual matches and came away incredibly impressed with the week that Sammy Sasso had for the team as he was named the Big Ten Wrestler of the Week.

On Friday, Sasso went on and beat Iowa's Pat Lugo in overtime for a 2-1 victory, very impressive with Lugo being ranked the No. 1 wrestler in his weight class (149 pounds). Then Sasso followed that up with a 4-2 decision over Minnesota's Brayton Lee, who was ranked No. 4 at the time.

Intermat Wrestling now has Sasso as the No. 2 wrestler in his class nationally and the freshman is up to 18-2 on the season.

The Buckeyes host Maryland on Friday at the4 Covelli Center and then travel to Nebraska for a Sunday match.

1 - Can the Buckeyes take one from Indiana?

We earlier talked about the basketball team in general but now we will focus more on the game coming up this weekend and the question of 'what will it take to win;?

The obvious answer is to score more points than IU, and that is really about as simplistic as it gets. The Hoosiers are outscoring the Buckeyes by 1.6 points per game this season but the Buckeyes hold the edge in scoring defense, allowing 5.1 fewer points per game this season (stats through Wednesday morning).

It also does not hurt that Indiana is coming off of a 64-49 stinker against Penn State where the Hoosiers put up 21 points in the second half and 33-percent from the field, 18-percent from three, highly reminiscent of Ohio State's issue at Assembly Hall previously.

But head-to-head, the Hoosiers executed better while the Buckeyes had long stretches where they could not spit in the ocean.

Both teams are 2-2 since these two teams last met as the Buckeyes are averaging 71.5 points per game during that stretch and allowing just shy of 70 points per game. Indiana has had a thinner margin with 68.8 points per game and allowing 68.3 points per game.

Those numbers mean little when you are turning the ball over and having completely empty possessions with the ball. Ohio State has been Ohio State's worst enemy in its losses with a fast and loose approach with the ball.

With 11 games to go, you can't call each game a 'must win' at this point of the season but this game will go a long way to show what Ohio State's final month (plus) may look like the rest of the way as Ohio State could string a couple of wins together and then attack the tough Big Ten moving forward. Lose this game, it isn't going to get any easier in the final 10, which makes this game that much more important.

2 - Running back recruiting?

I know a lot of members of our community outside of the message board and I get a lot of questions about what is up with Ohio State running back recruiting, so this really is not a question "for this week" versus any other week.

With JK Dobbins coming off of one of the most statistically productive seasons as an Ohio State back, you would want to think that running backs from far and wide would be calling the Buckeyes, dropping off tape and looking to set up visits.

And yet, Ohio State has one signee in the class and that appears to be about as far as this will go.

Have no fear, 2021 is going to be a different year and look for Ohio State to have a great haul, starting in-state.

It certainly did not help that Ohio State really appeared to be a front-runner for two talented OOS backs last year, only to lose them both in the last minutes of the 11th hour for all intents and purposes.

There is no need to get into each individual case, what happened... happened. You run that risk recruiting nationally and not every player is set to go 1,000-plus miles away to attend college and you just have to roll with the punches.

It certainly makes an argument for recruiting closer to home when there is a 'tie' between an in-state player and an out-of-state player. While it does not mean you can recruit and then forget that player once he commits, it is a lot easier to be the team that has geography on its side than not. It certainly helps as well being the team that the family may have had a lifelong rooting interest for rather than just the suddenly 'hot' team.

This of course does not explain some 'recently good' teams (cough, cough... Clemson) but their recruiting success as of late is just otherworldly and as much at it pains Ohio State fans to give any credit to the Tigers, it is real and it is not going away any time soon, for now.

So while the questions will persist about not landing those premiere backs, it shouldn't be a long term issue and let's not detract from a pretty good group of backs already in-house. While there are going to be questions about each and every one of them, how many people were sure that Zeke Elliott was going to turn into Zeke Elliott and the same can be said about JK Dobbins as well.

Patience will pay off, trust me.

There are not many things that I can predict here with NSD really looking like being just another day and there not being any real newsworthiness of the Super Bowl outside of Nick Bosa being Nick Bosa.

No, I have to make a pick on the basketball game and while it is a hesitant pick, I feel that the Buckeyes will be better than a low-30-percent shooting team in this game. I don't see the Hoosiers being able to get back to the 70s in scoring and if this game is in the 60s (or lower) I feel that Ohio State will be able to get that big win to start off February with a big win and put some distance between themselves and a dismal January.