The Buckeyes’ season has flown by so far, and we are already seven games into the Big Ten Conference schedule. Let’s evaluate Ohio State at the midway point and discuss NCAA Tournament hopes. 

Ohio State is 13-5 and 5-3 in the Big Ten after overcoming an overtime thriller against Minnesota Tuesday Evening. The Big Ten has been one of the most competitive conferences in all of basketball, with the disadvantage of having to travel out west to face UCLA, USC, Washington, and Oregon. The Buckeyes have a 2-1 record against the West Coast teams, splitting their West Coast trip 1-1 and recently defeating UCLA at home.

The story of this season has been close losses and inconsistency, the same reason why the 2024-25 season was considered a failure. There have been multiple games this season that have brought back bad memories from last season. However, in games against West Virginia, Rutgers, and Minnesota, it has been shown that the Buckeyes can close out those games that they were unable to last season.  

We all know that January has been seen as the month when the BasketBucks take a turn for the worse, but so far it seems that they have broken the curse and have started the 2026 year 4-2 with close losses to Nebraska and on the road against Washington. There are still two weeks left in the month, and the Buckeyes’ path only gets harder from here on out.

This Friday, there is a showdown in Ann Arbor against arguably the best team in the country up to this point. Then, on the last day of January, a match-up in Madison with the Badgers, who defeated TTUN and ended their undefeated hopes in Ann Arbor. On Valentine’s Day, we have a rare Non-Conference mid season matchup in Nashville against the fourteenth-ranked team in the country, the Virginia Cavaliers, who hired VCU head coach Ryan Odum in the summer, and he has turned the Cavs program around so far.   

This leads into the conversation of the NCAA Tournament, something the Buckeyes have not experienced since 2021. Coach Diebler has made it his mission to get the program back to the same level it was during the EJ Liddell era. So the question is, what are the requirements to become an automatic bid into the tournament? 

Ohio State, I’m calling it. https://t.co/s5edxG0FYv pic.twitter.com/aAwBoReSNo

— Evan Miyakawa (@EvanMiya) January 15, 2026

Currently, the Buckeyes are ranked 36th in the NET rankings, which lands them 7th in the Big Ten as of right now. Their record against Quad 1 teams is 0-4, which will hurt them down the line unless they can finish the big games. They are 3 plays away from being 16-2, and that would have made them 2-2 in the Quad 1 games. 

I believe they need 19 wins to clinch a tournament sport, which would put them at a 19-11 record before the Big Ten tournament. It would be very tough for the committee to leave out a 19-11 Big Ten team that has had close games against a lot of the best teams in the country.   

With the talent they have on the team, I think they could very well be playing deep into the madness if they can stay consistent and play together as a team. Ohio State has one of the best backcourts in the country with Bruce Thornton and John Mobley Jr when both are on their game. When one guard plays bad it ruins the consistency of the team. 

Jake Diebler: “Coming into this season we felt like we had put together a backcourt that could be one of the very best in the country.”

— Connor Lemons (@lemons_connor) January 17, 2026

Overall, I think the Buckeyes are on the right track. They need 5-6 more wins, in my opinion, to have a very good shot at returning to the big dance. This means that they need to show the same consistency they have shown in 2026 so far during the rest of the season. There is a lot of basketball left to play, and we all must strap in and enjoy the ride that the Buckeyes take us on.