Ohio State basketball breaks into Top-Five in latest AP Poll
The Ohio State basketball team is back in the top-five for the first time since December of 2019. The Buckeyes are up three spots from No. 7 to No. 4 in this week’s AP Poll ranking.
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This week, the Buckeyes only played one game, upsetting Iowa on Thursday night. The Buckeyes victory was their fifth against a ranked team this season. The Buckeyes are a scorching hot 7-2 since the start of 2021 and will ride a four-game away winning streak into Maryland to take on the Terrapins tonight.
At fourth in the country, the Buckeyes trail only Gonzaga, Baylor, and Michigan in the rankings. According to Sports Reference, Ohio State hasn’t been ranked in the top-five this late in the season since 2012, when they took a trip to the final four.
Even though Gonzaga is still the top team in the country, Baylor was able to grab five more first-place votes, closing the gap between the two teams to 47 poll points.
Looking at the Big Ten, No. 3 ranked Michigan is the only team ranked higher than Ohio State from the conference. Illinois, up six spots from last week, is at No. 6. Iowa, following their loss to the Buckeyes, has tumbled outside of the top-10 and down to No. 15. Wisconsin dropped two spots to No. 21. Purdue and Rutgers round out the top-25 at No. 24 and No. 25 respectively. Minnesota also got votes but did not make the cut.
In terms of Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology, the Ohio State basketball team sits firmly as a two seed, with a projected first-round matchup with projected 15th seed Stephen F. Austin. The winner of that game will go on to play the winner of projected No. 7 seed Colorado and No. 10 seed Arkansas.
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Coming up this week, the Buckeyes have a matchup with Maryland tonight at 9:00, before heading home to take on Indiana on Saturday afternoon.