The Big Ten media clearly thinks the Ohio State basketball team will be middling

The Ohio State basketball team is back at it. They have started practice and will be playing in some scrimmages as well. They are hoping to be better than they were in the last two years. Chris Holtmann did not do a good job leading the program and he finally lost his job for it.

This is a new era now. It's Jake Diebler's team for the whole year as opposed to just the final ten games. The roster is pretty new as some guys have transferred out and graduated. Still, they have Bruce Thornton. Thornton is the best player on the team and was voted as a First-team All-Big Ten performer.

Even with Thornton, the team has a lot of new competition to go against. The Big Ten has now ballooned to 18 teams. It was hard to win in the old Big Ten and it's even harder now. The media doesn't have a lot of faith that the Buckeyes will win big either.

The Ohio State basketball team is voted to finish 8th in the Big Ten

The Big Ten media has voted the Ohio State Buckeyes to finish eighth in the conference. Somehow, they got a first-place vote. That's a joke. This team will not be the best team in the conference. But there is some debate that they should finish higher than this projected finish.

Ohio State is predicted to finish behind both Oregon and Rutgers, who are expected to be sixth and seventh respectively. There's an argument to be made that they could be better than both of those teams. Even so, a top-eight finish could get them in the NCAA Tournament.

If the Buckeyes do finish eighth, that might be enough to get them into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a couple of seasons. We'll see what Jake Diebler is able to do.