The Ohio State Buckeyes men's basketball team deserves a round of applause and maybe some apologies for what they have done at the end of this season.
The Ohio State Buckeyes men's basketball team is legitimately one of the hottest programs in the country right now.
Ohio State has ripped off four straight victories, with the most recent one being a nice revenge win over the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Big Ten Tournament on Thursday.
Nearly one month ago, exactly, the Buckeyes had a very disappointing loss to the No. 15 Virginia Cavaliers by just four points in Nashville. That loss firmly put the Buckeyes on the bubble as they had a very tough stretch of hoops ahead of them.
Instead of cowering away, they bowed up and have put together an incredibly impressive stretch of basketball. Down the stretch, they have had wins over No. 8 Purdue, a 32-point win over Penn State, Indiana, and then a three-point escape over Iowa.
The Buckeyes went from a firm bubble team to an either 8 or 9 seed in next week's tournament. That's how it stands as of Friday morning, and it can only get better.
It's now that Buckeye fans, including myself, owe Jake Diebler and this team an apology and a handshake.
I put in writing that Ohio State's loss to the Hawkeyes at the end of February was "gutless" and that they quit on their team. I said that Ross Bjork had Diebler firmly on the hot seat and that he shouldn't be the coach of this program.
Now, I am eating my words, because his team could have quit six different times, but instead, they fought back each and every time.
This is not hyperbole to say that Ohio State is not a team that you want to see in your bracket, and they are certainly not a team that you want to see on the line connected to yours.
One of the real keys to a March run is getting hot at the right time. Ohio State feels like they are heating up at the right time, and they are built with the correct pieces that, if they are firing on all cylinders, will be a very tough team to beat.
If the Buckeyes can go into the Big Ten quarterfinals and pull off the upset against the top-seed Michigan, then the conversation is going to get very loud.
Right now, they are a fun story in college basketball. If things go the way they are supposed to, they could become a very real contender for not just a birth, but a long tournament run.
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