It's February, which means it's time for the schedule to really heat up for the Ohio State basketball team, and it is full of big opportunities for the Buckeyes to add to their NCAA Tournament resume.
The NCAA Tournament selection committee loves to use the Net Rankings to help their selection process. The Net Rankings track records, and how a team has down against a specific caliber of opponent separated into four Quads. Stacking wins in the Quad-1, or even Quad-2 column, really helps give a look at how a team is doing when playing against the top teams.
Let's take a look at Ohio State's upcoming schedule and how many will be Quad-1 or Quad-2 games:
In order for a game to be a Quad-1 game, it needs to be at home against teams 1-30, on a neutral court it's 1-50, and then away it's teams ranked 1-75. Right now, Ohio State ranks 39th overall in the rankings, and they have a record of 0-6 in Quad-1 games; they're 5-1 in Quad-2.
As of right now, 5 of the next 7 games will be Quad-1 opportunities for the Buckeyes. Those games are today vs Michigan, vs Virginia in Nashville on Valentine's Day, then at Michigan State, at Iowa, and home vs Purdue on March 1st. The selection committee values the quality of opponents you played, and how you did against those teams, and having a goose-egg in the win column will certainly not help their case.
With Ohio State's Q1 record the way it is now, it's important they snag some of these games coming up to boost their tournament resume. If they don't, it'll be an easy decision for the committee to leave the Buckeye Basketball team on the outside of the tournament field for the 4th year in a row.
Each team coming up on the schedule is expected to be either in the NCAA Tournament or on the bubble, so it's a great chance for Ohio State to showcase itself against other potential tournament teams. It all starts today with the Ohio State basketball team hosting #2 Michigan. A win this afternoon would skyrocket their chances of getting back into the Big Dance.