Ohio State basketball team has NCAA Tourney hopes dashed after loss

The Ohio State basketball team needed to beat Illinois to give themselves a chance to get onto the bubble. No one thought they could do that after the way their season started. Since firing Chris Holtmann, Jake Diebler has done a phenomenal job. They had won six of their last seven games coming into Friday night.

The Buckeyes needed to beat the second-seeded Illinois on Friday night to get themselves firmly on the bubble. After taking down Iowa, their season came down to this. Ohio State knew it was going to be a hard-fought game going against one of the best players in the conference in Coleman Hawkins. Defending him was at the top of their game plan.

The Ohio State basketball team loses to Illinois to end their NCAA Tournament dreams

Instead, the Buckeyes fell to the Illini 77-74 in a game that was a crushing loss. The Buckeyes led by as much as 10 in this game and still lost. The refs weren’t very good with their foul calling. It’s still a game that Ohio State should have won. Instead, they now go home and will likely receive an NIT bid instead of one to March Madness.

Jamison Battle had 21 points in the loss. He did the best he could, as did Bruce Thornton who had 20. Those two were the leading scorers for the Buckeyes. The foul trouble was just too much to overcome in a game they needed to have. Illinois ended the game on a 6-0 run to win the game, which hurts the most.

The question now is whether or not Jake Diebler has done enough to get the head coaching job. It will either be him or Dusty May. At this way, it will likely be 50/50 on whether or not he gets the job. It will be up to Ross Bjork to decide on who gives them the best chance to win moving forward.