Jake Diebler makes case for Ohio State to make NCAA Tournament field

In his first full season as the head coach at Ohio State, Jake Diebler is hoping to have done enough to lead the Buckeyes to the NCAA Tournament. It’s a goal that Diebler believes the Buckeyes deserve, largely because of the challenging schedule that they play in the Big Ten.

Ohio State finished the regular season on a sour note, losing to Indiana. That made for losses in four of their final six games and dropped the Buckeyes to 17-14 overall and 9-11 in Big Ten play. Still, Diebler sees a path to the NCAA Tournament field.

“We’ve got to win on Wednesday,” Jake Diebler said. “Listen, this league deserves a lot of teams in the NCAA Tournament. I mean, this is an absolute gauntlet of a league, and I think teams need to be rewarded for scheduling hard in the non-conference, which we did, and in my opinion, this was a game between two NCAA Tournament teams.”

Indiana beat Ohio State 66-60 in a low-scoring game. The Buckeyes ended up shooting 38.2 percent from the field and had 10 turnovers. Their 31 rebounds were nine less than the Hoosiers snagged. In the end, it would be the lowest-scoring game for the Buckeyes on offense since February 20th when they only scored 49 points against Northwestern.

“I mean, it was a high-level game that, you know,” Diebler said. “Maybe there wasn’t the shot making that we had in the last game, which was between two high-level teams. This was a high-level game, tough, physical game. Our team deserves, whatever that number is, 10-11 teams, our league deserves double-digit teams in the NCAA Tournament. Again if you’re hovering close to .500 in this league, you’ve got a lot of quality wins.”

In the latest bracketology, Ohio State is listed as one of the Last Four In. That gives them an 11-seed and is putting them in the First Four, which would be played in Dayton, Ohio. That’s on the back of a 6-11 record against Quad 1 opponents and a 3-3 record against Quad 2 opponents. In total, that predicts the Big Ten will get 10 teams in the NCAA Tournament.

“We’re focused on Wednesday. I know Wednesday is really important. I make no mistake about that — I understand that. But based on, and I’ll take a deeper dive and maybe get you a better answer,” Diebler said. “Because I’ve really tried to focus on the task. I’m not trying to run from it because it is really, really important and we need to get a win on Wednesday. So, our focus is to live in the moment. There’s a championship to be won in the Big Ten Tournament. We want to go out there and use our time between now and Wednesday to play our best basketball. Our best basketball is being really tough and connected. I thought we did that playing with joy. I thought we did that, but we just didn’t quite trust each other offensively in the second half.”

While Ohio State is firmly on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament, there is room to improve their resume. A deep run in the Big Ten Tournament would go a long way to securing their spot in the NCAA Tournament. Of course, a quick loss could also leave a bad taste in the Selection Committee’s mouth.

“We’ve been doing so well, but I think that team that we just played deserves to be in the NCAA Tournament. I think we deserve to be in the NCAA Tournament. Our league deserves a lot of teams in the NCAA Tournament. Strength of schedule needs to matter,” Diebler said. “But we’ve got to control what we can control and go get ready for Wednesday.”

With the Big Ten playing games on Sunday, the field isn’t set in stone yet. However, for the time being, the Buckeyes are looking at the 10-seed in the Big Ten Tournament.