CHICAGO – And now the Buckeyes wait.

Have they done enough? The Ohio State Men's Basketball team won a must-win game on Thursday against Indiana, a game that was considered a play-in game to the NCAA Tournament. Then the Buckeyes came out and played 33 good minutes of basketball before foul trouble and an empty gas tank led to a 77-70 loss to Michigan State in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals.

Is all of the newfound optimism on Thursday gone just 24 hours later?

Make no mistake, the NCAA Tournament has to take 68 teams, regardless of how strong the field is or how weak it is. 2018-19 has produced one of the softest 'bubbles' in recent memories and even with a few bid stealers messing up the equation, there is just not a lot of depth when it comes to filling in 36 at-large bids.

A win on Friday would have given the Buckeyes another critical quadrant one win to add to their resume.

But the Buckeyes did not need it in terms of showing that they deserve to be in the field.

The NCAA takes into account when a team is without their best player, as the Buckeyes were for three games with the suspension of Kaleb Wesson. The Buckeyes lost all three games during that period, including a horrible 18-point loss to Northwestern in Evanston (Ill.). At that point people did not figure that the Buckeyes would be able to bounce back.

Ohio State finished 8-12 in the 20-game schedule that the Big Ten put into place this year, four games under-.500 in conference play.

Unlike football however, the NCAA Tournament seems to still put value in who a team beats rather than who a team loses to. The Ohio State football team has tasted that in back-to-back years when it came down to the College Football Playoff.

Wins at Cincinnati and Creighton in the first weeks of the season still carry weight, more weight than a loss at Northwestern.

"Who knows what can happen, I feel like our body of work has positioned us very, very well," Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann said after the game versus the Spartans.

Ohio State will be the answer to a trivia question for years to come. Who was the first team to be No. 1 in the newly installed NET rankings? Ohio State.

It was a short run, but at one point this season, the Buckeyes were the darlings of college basketball, even with some flaws at that point of the season and what was considered a less than stellar loss to Syracuse in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.

Neither Jerry Palm (CBS) nor Joe Lunardi (ESPN) had Ohio State in the dreaded 'last four in' category or playing in Dayton in the opening slate of NCAA Tournament games.

A nice dinner at the Pine Club would be nice, but it creates a logistical nightmare for all involved to play on Tuesday or Wednesday only to turn around and play again on Thursday or Friday. Avoiding the play-in is a no-brainer.

The Buckeyes were a double-digit underdog to the Spartans on Friday and bettered that with a seven-point loss. Yes, Ohio State was down by 21 points with four-plus minutes to go, but even staring at defeat, this team did not give up, something that could have been brought into question just a few short months ago when everything that could go wrong was going wrong for this team.

There were plenty of disappointed faces in the Ohio State locker room minutes after their Big Ten Tournament run came to an end. None of the players acted as if they were scared about their postseason fates, however.

"I don’t know about nervous; our body of work speaks for itself and I feel like we put ourselves in a pretty good position," Wesson said. "If the committee chooses not to put us in then we are going to another tournament and will do our best."

Yes, every year there are teams that 'should' make the field that DON'T make the field. Tournament snubs are a constant talking point only minutes after the full field of 68 teams are announced.

The Buckeyes have won the games that they were supposed to win, save games at Northwestern and Rutgers as well as a home loss against the Illini. Ohio State may be short on wins against teams that are going to be in the field but go and try and find 36 other at-large teams that are without flaws.

Book your travel folks.

Where?

We won't find that out until Sunday and the selection show.

The Buckeyes will be dancing but will not be given any breaks as one of the last teams on the dance card and will draw a high seed and could be farmed out just about anywhere not named Columbus (Ohio) in terms of venues.

Dancing is dancing, however. The Buckeyes found out what it was like to play themselves onto the bubble, then off the bubble into the abyss and back in.

The post season could not come quickly enough because given any more time and this team could have found itself back off the bubble again.

Sunday can't get here soon enough.