Ohio State Projected As 9 Seed By Joe Lunardi Going Into Big Ten Tournament

After finishing the regular season with a three-game win streak, beating Purdue, Penn State and Indiana, Ohio State is projected at a 9 seed by college basketball analyst Joe Lunardi of ESPN.

In his latest Bracketology update, Lunardi has the Buckeyes squarely in the bracket in a matchup with Georgia, which he projects as an 8 seed in the East region.

For much of the second half of the season, Ohio State wasn’t projected to make the NCAA Tournament as it struggled to put together a solid run in Big Ten play and wasn’t able to secure a Quad 1 win.

However, over the past few weeks, the Buckeyes have added three Quad 1 wins, two of them retroactive. With Northwestern entering the top 75 in the NET rankings, OSU’s road win over the Wildcats has made it there, while Wisconsin entered the top 30 after beating Purdue over the weekend. The Buckeyes’ win over Purdue has them at 3-10 in those games.

There is still more of an opportunity to add to the resume for Ohio State, but they have a tough path in the Big Ten tournament to do so. As the 8 seed in the conference, it’s most likely matchup is 9-seeded Iowa, which will match up against the winner of Oregon and Maryland in the second round.

If the Buckeyes are able to avenge their 17-point loss to the Hawkeyes they suffered in late February on the road, they will then have to match up with the No. 1 team in the Big Ten, Michigan, which has beaten Ohio State twice this season already, doing so by 21 points at the Schottenstein Center on Feb. 8.

But even if the Buckeyes lose their first game in the Big Ten tournament, their spot in the NCAA bracket feels fairly safe at this point with how well they performed in the last three games of the regular season.