After an unforeseen 2020 without America's favorite bracket-based event, we're finally nearing the most wonderful time of the year.
March 14 marks the beginning of that one-month period where college basketball dominates the national landscape, where conference tournaments run morning to night, where everyone becomes a bracketologist and everything revolves around a 68-team tournament filled with powerhouses and Cinderella stories.
That's right. The Big Dance is coming.
Following the format of our friends at GoldandBlack.com, let's review Ohio State's (very impressive) tournament résumé as we inch towards one of the strangest postseasons in the history of March Madness.
Basic Info
Record: 17-4 (11-4 Big Ten), 10-1 home, 6-3 away, 1-0 neutral
AP Poll: No. 4
Coaches Poll: No. 5
NET: No. 7
KenPom: No. 7
KenPom strength of schedule: No. 13
Quadrant Wins/Losses
Quadrants are used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee to determine how impressive a team's slate of wins is. They're based on the committee's NET rankings. Here, Ohio State's quadrant record appears in parentheses next to the definition of said quadrant.
Q1 (8-3): Home vs. NET 1-30, Neutral vs. NET 1-50, Away vs. NET 1-75
Wins: Notre Dame (away), UCLA (neutral), Rutgers (home), Rutgers (away), Illinois (away), Wisconsin (away), Iowa (away), Maryland (away)
Losses: Purdue (away), Minnesota (away), Purdue (home)
Q2 (2-1): Home vs. NET 31-75, Neutral vs. NET 51-100, Away vs. NET 76-135
Wins: Penn State (home), Indiana (home)
Losses: Northwestern (away)
Q3 (4-0): Home vs. NET 76-160, Neutral vs. NET 101-200, Away vs. NET 136-240
Wins: Morehead State (home), Nebraska (home), Northwestern (home), Michigan State (home)
Q4 (3-0): Everything else
Wins: Illinois State (home), UMass-Lowell (home), Cleveland State (home)
Bracketology
Bracket Matrix: No. 1 seed (composite), 1.14 (average)
ESPN: No. 1 seed (through 2/12)
CBS Sports: No. 1 seed (through 2/14)
NCAA.com: No. 1 seed (through 2/10)
The Outlook
On Saturday, the reality of Ohio State's bolt to the top was confirmed when the Selection Committee officially projected the Buckeyes as a No. 1 seed in its bracket preview.
All Chris Holtmann and company have to do is keep winning-- far from a walk in the park in the Big Ten. With five remaining games looming, including top-15 matchups with Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois, nothing is guaranteed.
However, with an NCAA-best eight Q1 wins and six victories against ranked opponents, Ohio State's spot in the dance should be all but locked in. It all becomes a matter of keeping a stranglehold on that No. 1 line as the season moves into March.
