NCAA Tournament Outlook
When I first picked up my pen (opened my laptop) to write this weekly feature, my angle was that Ohio State needed a signature win and was running out of time to get one. But signature isn't the right word, really. A victory at Iowa is exactly what the Buckeyes need right now, but one can't call that a signature win. The Hawkeyes aren't even ranked.
So let's toss the semantics and my brain's overwhelming need to create an attention-grabbing story hook aside. Bluntly, what the Buckeyes need are Quad 1 wins. Those are determined by the NCAA's NET rankings. A top-30 team at home, a top-50 team at a neutral site and a top-75 team on the road are considered Quad 1 opponents. I don't explain that enough here for something that's not common knowledge.
Ohio State is 0-9 in Quad 1 games right now. Take your pick of bubble teams that the Buckeyes are competing against; they have Quad 1 victories. The last four teams in according to the Bracket Matrix – an aggregate of 112 expert bracket predictions – are Missouri, Santa Clara, TCU and New Mexico. Each of them has a Quad 1 victory, even Santa Clara, which plays in the WCC. Missouri has four.
Two Quad 1 opportunities are set at the Buckeyes' feet this week: at Iowa (28th in the NET) and a home tilt with No. 8 Purdue (sixth). Two vanquished opponents can help their case for the NCAA Tournament by moving up in the NET rankings: Wisconsin if it jumps from 32nd to 30th, and Northwestern if it jumps from 79th to 75th.
Ohio State is the second team out in the matrix, but the first team out is USC, which the Buckeyes beat head-to-head, so effectively, they are the first team out. ESPN's Joe Lunardi has OSU ahead of the Trojans as his first team out. Ohio State is the second team out behind VCU according to CBS Sports.
The Buckeyes have a higher NET ranking than each of the teams listed ahead of them on the bubble so far in this article. Those Quad 1 wins are the missing link. Scooping one up this week is necessary, unless a big run in the Big Ten Tournament is on the horizon. Speaking of:
Big Ten Outlook
Ohio State's matchup at Iowa on Wednesday carries more than just NCAA Tournament implications: The winner of that game will take control of the No. 8 spot in the conference standings, the last spot that gets a double-bye through the first two rounds of the Big Ten Tournament.
Indiana trails the Buckeyes and Hawkeyes by one game for that coveted eighth spot, while UCLA is just one game ahead. A win over Iowa would give Ohio State a head-to-head victory against the Bruins and Hawkeyes, with OSU and the Hoosiers facing each other in their regular-season finale on March 7. Owning those tiebreakers could make the difference for a free entry to the third round.
A first-round bye is already secure for Ohio State, being five games ahead of that cut line with four games to play.
The top four teams in the conference get a triple-bye through to the quarterfinals. Michigan is 2.5 games clear of anyone in the conference, with Illinois, Nebraska, Purdue, Michigan State and Wisconsin all within 1.5 games of each other in the battle for seeds two through six. The Buckeyes are all but out of contention for a triple-bye, currently three games back of fourth place.
