With Ohio State's huge win over Penn State on Wednesday night, they all but locked themselves in for a tournament birth.
While the seeding may change over the course of the next couple of weeks, the Ohio State find themselves squarely in the Big Dance after the performance that it put on over the last three weeks of the season.
After losing to Virginia, their backs were squarely against the wall, and they fought their tails off to get off the mat. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't smooth for the Buckeyes.
They started the final seven games with an impressive and big victory over the No. 24 Wisconsin Badgers. That victory was short-lived as, like they have done all season, they couldn't put together a win streak.
In their next night out, they played the No. 10 Michigan State Spartans tough, but it wasn't enough in a six-point loss. They had a chance to rebound against the Iowa Hawkeyes, and that game went about as poorly as you could imagine.
Ohio State found themselves down nearly 30 points at different moments in the game and ended up losing by 17 in a heartless performance.
The season was on life support.
Then, against all odds, they came home against the No. 8 Purdue Boilermakers and as fate would have it, the Buckeyes punked the Boilers and beat them soundly to set up a two-game finish to the year that they needed both games.
That takes us to Wednesday Night against the Penn State Nittany Lions. The contest was close until the first media timeout, and then the Buckeyes poured it on.
Trailing 8-7, the Buckeyes orchestrated a 25-4 run to take total control of the ball game. It never really was close as Penn State rolled over to die while the Buckeyes took advantage of a bad basketball team.
Ohio State's win moves them to a modest 19-11 record and very likely into the tournament. I predicted that the Buckeyes needed to go 5-2 at worst over their last seven games, and as they sit with one game to go, they are 4-2 in the stretch with two Quad 1 victories.
They did exactly what they needed to do, and they will be rewarded for it.
This isn't to say that they will have a favorable seed or that they can even make a run, but what head coach Jake Diebler's squad did to fight their way into the postseason is commendable. It is something that happens in March that you never know could lead to a deep run at the whole thing.
Next up is the regular season finale against the Indiana Hoosiers that will put a bow on the 2025-26 regular season, one that got the Buckeyes back to The Dance for the first time since 2022.
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