The Ohio State basketball team is finally back in March Madness. After a four-year wait, the Buckeyes are back as an eight-seed. They will take on TCU in the first round of the tournament and are viewed as slight favorites. Unfortunately for them, they are in the same region as Duke.
Duke is the number-one overall seed in the tournament. They have only lost two games this season and just won the ACC Tournament Championship. Even so, the Blue Devils have some injury problems that could make them vulnerable. Caleb Foster is currently dealing with an injury.
Foster is a 40 percent shooter from beyond the 3-point arc as a starting guard. Without him on the court, Duke isn't as good. That is one of the reasons why a prominent college basketball analyst believes Ohio State is the biggest threat to the Blue Devils.
Ohio State basketball team seen as the biggest threat to Duke by college basketball analyst.
CBS Sports' Wally Szczerbiak believes that the Buckeyes are the biggest threat to knock Duke out of their region.
"I'm going to go one round earlier. Ohio State. They're playing really good basketball. For most of the season, they were in a lot of those Quad 1 games that they needed to kind of get. Hanging around at Michigan, ended up losing by nine, ten. Then all of a sudden, in the last week of the season, when their backs were against the wall, they played their best basketball."
Szczerbiak thinks the Blue Devils really need to watch out if the Buckeyes beat the Horned Frogs.
"This team has really started to find it. They lost in the Big Ten Tournament to Michigan by only four points. The big key is that Devin Royal is starting to play. And when he plays well, they have good guard play with Mobley and Thornton, obviously. So they're a team early on if they catch Duke a little bit wounded, that could maybe pull off a shocking upset."
The Buckeyes are certainly playing their best basketball right now, but pulling off an upset over Duke will be tough to pull off. They don't really have anyone defensively who can hold up against Cameron Boozer, who will likely be a top-three pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.
Still, anything can happen in the month of March. Ohio State needs to take care of business in the first round first.