The Buckeyes have fallen back to Earth.

After a tough loss on the road in College Station Friday night, Ohio State completely dropped out of the Week 3 Associated Press men’s basketball rankings Monday. The Buckeyes received the 35th-most votes.

Jake Diebler’s squad was No. 21 before losing by 14 points to No. 23 Texas A&M due to a poor shooting night and the inability to remain disciplined on the defensive end. Ohio State shot just 34 percent from the field and 27 percent from downtown; this came after back-to-back games shooting over 45 percent from deep.

On top of that, Ohio State picked up 12 fouls in each half, including putting the Aggies in the bonus with over seven minutes remaining in the first.

However, the Buckeyes seemed to have addressed a couple areas, even in their loss. One is that they can compete on the glass with one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country — in fact, Ohio State had more offensive boards than the reigning No. 1 team in that category.

In addition, and perhaps its still early, but Ohio State saw that it likely could not live and die by the 3-pointer; even John Mobley Jr., who started the season 7-for-8 from downtown, shot 3-for-7 from deep Friday.

Big Ten teams featured in this edition of the top 25 included No. 6 Purdue — who rose seven spots after a top-10 win over Alabama — No. 16 Indiana, new No. 19 Wisconsin, No. 24 Rutgers and No. 25 Illinois.

Ohio State can look to bounce back Tuesday in Columbus as it takes on Evansville at 7 p.m. The contest will stream live on Big Ten Plus.

DAYTON, Ohio — Have you ever wondered what it would be like if an ambulance could fly? For the 445th Air Lift Wing, it’s not a ‘what if’ but a ‘where and when’ as it pertains to transporting our nation’s heroes from hospitals and battlefields around the globe.

I was invited to take a flight with the 445th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron to get a closer look at how Ohio airmen are always preparing for their next mission.

“Within 24 hours I can be ready to go,” said flight medic Madi Potts.

She’s what’s called a traditional Air Force reservist. One day Potts might be in the classroom at her university or working as a nurse. The next day, she could have orders and be in her military uniform working on a C-17 or other type of military transport.

“I just got out of flight medic school for this about two months ago,” she said.

The 445th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron consists of both full-time military members and reservists. Training is the same for everyone.

On the tarmac at Wright Patterson Air Base, a C-17 Globemaster III sits whirling with activity as airmen work with training mannequins — and live actors — labeled with a variety of health conditions lying on transport litters.

While the pilots are busy readying the aircraft to taxi and takeoff; flight nurses and flight medics ensure patients are assessed and loaded. It’s a well-orchestrated process the airmen of the 445th appear to be able to do with their eyes closed.

Master Sergeant Brenna Pogoy, the mission clinical coordinator, is putting the airmen through a variety of scenarios to ensure the unit remains at the top of its game for when it matters.

“This is nothing like a real world but that’s because you’re not having a fire every flight on a real world, you’re not having an emergency landing all the time,” she said.

But the overload of events is to drive the nurses and medics to the brink of their ability, so they learn to dig a little deeper during an emergency.

“When it does happen and when a patient does have an emergency, or the aircraft has an emergency you are ready and there’s muscle memory in that,” Pogoy said.

The Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron’s mission is broad.

This crew could be called to transport service men and women from different military air bases within the U.S. from Walter Reed Hospital to their hometown hospital or military base, for example.

The mission can also take them near the front lines, most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, picking up the wounded and transporting them to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany or other military bases for more treatment before returning to the U.S.

“On the C-17 we can max floor load, we can do 12 on the ramp and another 48 on the main floor,” Master Sergeant Marjorie Butcher said.

That’s a total of 60 patients on litters strapped to the floor at one time with a team of two nurses and three medical technicians providing care throughout the duration of the flight. In addition, depending on the severity of injuries full medical teams can set up a hospital-like setting within the transport planes.

“The Air Force trains us well and they trust us to do our job,” Butcher said.

Then there’s the mission Butcher would deem as unregulated. The unplanned scenario was seen around the world in August 2021 as the U.S. evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan as part of the U.S. withdrawal.

“My first deployment in the military was to Kabul. That was my first flight ever I’d never flown patients or anything,” Butcher said.

She enlisted in 2015 and received her wings to fly with the Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron in April of 2021, just months before the historic images seen around the world as hundreds of thousands of Afghanis flooded the Kabul airstrip trying to get on a C-17 to freedom.

“I was the last AE flight out of Kabul,” Butcher said.

At least one of those C-17s taking part in the evacuation was photographed with a reported 800 men, women, and children.

Colonel Michael Baker, Commander of the 445th Operations Group, told me that members of his unit on one of those flights dealt with a live birth on the flight out of Afghanistan.

Baker said what happened in Afghanistan was part of several debriefs and analyses on how to improve training and mission preparedness.

In all military training, there are checklists. The pilots go through them step by step and operators like flight nurses and medics within the 445th AES go through them. However, training must also prepare airmen for what’s outside those normal checklists.

“We put a lot of emphasis on what are called contingency operations where we really try to flex and push and challenge ourselves and get outside of the letter of our regulations and say where can we flex,” Major Issac Cade said.

Cade is the flight nurse on this flight and the medical crew director.

“We’ll run different scenarios just to see what happens, stress inoculation,” Cade said.

That stress inoculation allows them to run through multiple scenarios that push the limit way beyond the norms in an environment where it’s safe to do it.

“Ultimately the buck stops here,” he said. “If something goes wrong, we answer for it.”

For Cade, this is another day in the life of a reservist.

“I’m a nurse practitioner for Premier Health,” he said. “So tomorrow I will put on my civvies, my work clothes and then go into the office like nothing happened.”

It’s what tens of thousands of traditional reservists do regularly. Living their daily lives, contributing to the community they live in, ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice to answer the call for our country.

If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.

Heading into Week 13 of the 2024 college football season, the Ohio State Buckeyes are ranked No. 2 in the nation. This week, they will face off against the No. 5 ranked Indiana Hoosiers in an absolutely massive game for both teams with College Football Playoff implications.

At this point in time, there are quite a few teams who could be talented enough to win a national championship. As many thought before the season started, Ohio State is one of them.

Ryan Day and the Buckeyes have worked hard to get to this point. It will be interesting to see what they end up doing against Indiana.

Notable college football analyst Paul Finebaum spoke out with a bold take about Ohio State. He thinks that they’re the best team in the nation.

“I think Ohio State’s the best team in the country,” Finebaum said. “It could change, but right now, it hasn’t.”

There are many who believe that the Buckeyes are the best team in the country. The Oregon Ducks are also a team that has received a lot of hype throughout the season.

From a pure roster talent perspective, it’s hard to argue that Ohio State isn’t the most talented team in college football. They have elite talent at every single position.

If everyone plays up to their potential, a national championship should end up happening for the Buckeyes.

However, the team has to take care of business each and every week, but focus on doing it one week at a time. Fans will have a much clearer idea of just how good the Buckeyes are after this week’s game against the Hoosiers.

Hopefully, Ohio State can come out and make a major statement this week. Moving into the Michigan game, the Buckeyes would be brimming with confidence if they dispatch of Indiana. But, the Hoosiers are a good football team and Ohio State will have to bring their best to the field.

All of that being said, the Buckeyes will need to earn the title of best in the nation. Receiving it now is all fun and good, but Ohio State only has one goal. That goal is to be the best team in the nation when every single game in the 2024 season has been played.