Ohio State Basketball: Buckeyes continue drop in AP poll

College basketball’s week 11 AP rankings came out on Monday and oh boy how the mighty have fallen. Yes, I am talking about the Ohio State basketball team.

In the week eight AP rankings, the Ohio State basketball team ranked No. 2 in the nation with an 11-1 record. Since that point, they have lost four straight games to West Virginia, Wisconsin, Maryland, and Indiana.

Because of that four-game losing streak, and because of how bad they have looked in those games, the Buckeyes have gone from being the No. 2 team in the country to barely being in the top 25 as they rank at No. 21 this week.

This team does not even look similar to the team that beat Villanova, North Carolina, and Kentucky earlier this season, and it showed on Saturday when they allowed the Hoosiers to shoot 50 percent from three-point range.

Many thought their poor play was because they did not have Kyle Young on the court, and many have said that Kaleb Wesson needs help scoring, but Young played on Saturday and Andre Wesson scored 15 for OSU and D.J. Carton scored 10. It didn’t help that Kaleb Wesson was 3-of-11 from the field though.

This team is just not shooting the ball like it did early in the season as the Buckeyes shot less than 33 percent from the field on Saturday, and they just don’t seem to have that same intensity on both ends of the court.

The same thing happened last year too as the Buckeyes started 12-1 and then lost five straight to start the new year, so I am not sure if it is a coaching problem or a weak non-conference schedule.

I know that it looks like UNC and Villanova are good wins based on history, but the Tar Heels are 8-8 this year and Villanova is a middle-of-the-road top 25 team as they are 12-3 but have losses to Baylor and Marquette. I also think Chris Holtmann is a good coach but don’t know why his teams are struggling at the same point in the season.

I really don’t know what the answer is for the Buckeyes to start playing better and to climb back up the polls, but Holtmann and his staff better figure something out before they miss out on the NCAA tournament.