The NCAA Tournament is set, and the Buckeyes have landed in the toughest region in the entire tournament.
Buckle your seatbelt in the 2026 NCAA Tournament East Region.
The region of death, the region of legends, the region of blue bloods, or whatever you want to call it. The East region is a meat grinder, and the Ohio State Buckeyes find themselves at the heart of it.
One of the major positives of this era of NIL and the transfer portal in college sports is that there is legitimate competitive balance in all sports. Basketball has always been a little bit more balanced, but there is a very real chance that there are some low seeds that make a run this tournament.
In the east, seeds one through eight could all come out of the region, and no one would be surprised. The headliner is the Duke Blue Devils, who came across some horrible injury luck to end their season.
They are blessed with the most complete player in the country in Cameron Boozer, who is just a bonafied superstar. His running mate, Caleb Foster, suffered a broken foot and is questionable for the tournament.
The two are the UConn Huskies, coached by coaching legend Dan Hurley. While the Huskies got crunched by St. John's (stay tuned) in the Big East Championship, they will always be a force to be reckoned with.
The three seed? Yes, the third seed is the Michigan State Spartans, who were playing some of the best basketball in the country. Then, the Spartans were upended by the UCLA (stay tuned, part two) Bruins in the Big Ten quarterfinals.
The fourth seed is controlled by the Kansas Jayhawks, who are the definition of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When they are on, they are the best team in the country. When they are off or "injured," they could get beaten by anyone in the country.
I hope you stayed tuned because the fifth seed in the East is the St. John's Johnnies. You simply do not want to see them at any point in the tournament. They are fresh off a rout of the UConn Huskies in the Big East Championship. They play New York-style defense, and you'd better bring your lunch box when you take the court against St. John's.
Seed six is the best shooting team in America, the Louisville Cardinals. When they are hot, they can beat any team with the three-pointer without question.
They can shoot it from anywhere, and you'd better hope they wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
I hope you stayed tuned again, as the seventh seed is none other than the UCLA Bruins. UCLA took out Michigan State before giving Purdue a hard-fought game in the Big Ten Semifinals.
Finally, the Buckeyes round out the top eight as they played their way into a nice seed line. They were not rewarded with an easy bracket, but they may have gotten the best one-seed option they could have asked for.
The Buckeyes tip off the tournament on Thursday at 12:15 against the No. 9 seed TCU Horned Frogs.
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