The Ohio State men’s basketball team will host No. 8 Purdue on March 1 while fighting to keep its NCAA Tournament hopes intact.
The Buckeyes have three games left in Big Ten regular-season play and are 17-11 overall and 9-8 in the league. On Feb. 25, they lost 74-57 at Iowa, marking their second consecutive defeat and their first losing streak of the season. Afterward, the Buckeyes struggled to explain why they came apart when the Hawkeyes went on their first run of the game.
The Boilermakers 22-6 overall, 12-5 in the Big Ten and fresh off a 76-74 home loss to No. 13 Michigan State on Feb. 26.
As of Feb. 26, the Buckeyes were ranked No. 38 in the NET rankings used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee. They are also No. 46 in Wins Above Bubble, another category being utilized by the committee.
Purdue is No. 7 in the NET, making this a Quad 1 game for the Buckeyes. Ohio State is 1-10 in Quad 1.
Here is where Ohio State sits in the major NCAA Tournament projections as it prepares to host the Boilermakers at the Jerome Schottenstein Center:
Ohio State basketball standing in latest bracketology
In a bracket update published Feb. 18, USA Today projects the Buckeyes to make the NCAA Tournament and play in the First Four in Dayton. Ohio State is included as a No. 11 seed, facing fellow No. 11 seed Missouri. The winner of that game would head to Portland to face No. 6 seed Louisville.
Two weeks ago, Ohio State was a No. 10 seed and projected to avoid the First Four in Dayton. Now the Buckeyes are projected second on the list of the final four teams to make the tournament.
Ten Big Ten teams are included in the field, the second-most for any conference after the SEC (11).
In a Feb. 24 update, one day before the Buckeyes lost at Iowa, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had Ohio State as the first team not to make the tournament. After the loss, he dropped them to the third team in the first four out.
ESPN’s Bubble Watch noted that the loss now has Ohio State’s odds of making the tournament at about 50%.
CBS has the Buckeyes fourth on its list of the first four out.
The website BracketMatrix.com, which aggregates 118 different bracket projections, has Ohio State as a potential No. 11 seed. The Buckeyes appear in 41 brackets, many of which had not been updated after the Iowa game.
Analytics site BartTorvik.com projects Ohio State as a No. 10 seed and gives the Buckeyes a 52.1% chance to make the tournament as of Feb. 27.
Ohio State men’s basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social or on Twitter at @AdamJardy.
