Ohio State barely beat Iowa late Friday night in the Big Ten Quarterfinals. It took Iowa missing the game-winning shot at the buzzer to advance the Buckeyes to the Big Ten Semifinals on Saturday. There Ohio State’s Big Ten Tournament and Big Ten Championship hopes died hard at the hands of the buzzsaw that is the UCLA Bruins.
It wasn’t even close as UCLA beat Ohio State 75-46. That’s right, the Buckeyes were crushed by 29 points! UCLA is arguably the best team in women’s college basketball this season, so taking a knock-out punch from them isn’t too much to be ashamed of, but by 29 points is. It adds to the frustration and reputation that has rightly attached itself to this program. That being of a program that can’t win in the postseason.
The Buckeyes couldn’t defend against UCLA, which shot 50.8% from the field for the game. They couldn’t get any offense going themselves, shooting only 33.3% from the field for the game. They were outrebounded 43-25 and, at one point, found themselves down by 39!
Losing to UCLA isn’t the problem. Being 528-182 since 2002 isn’t the problem (that’s a winning percentage of over 74%). The problem is that in those 23 seasons, the Buckeyes have made the NCAA Tournament 18 times, and in those 18 times, they have only made it to the Elite Eight once. In 23 seasons, they’ve only won the Big Ten Tournament four times, only once under the current head coach, Kevin McGuff.
The good news is that the Buckeyes are only two years removed from that Elite Eight. After the brackets are selected, they should get a seed no lower than a six in the NCAA Tournament. Hopefully, the games against two of the best in basketball this year (USC and UCLA) have the Buckeyes fired up and prepared to fight that reputation of struggling in the postseason the way they did two years ago.