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Can Jake Diebler Lead Ohio State Basketball Into The NCAA Tournament? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Wednesday, March thirteenth. I'm your host,
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  tom or the Akron game in one hundred and seventy one days, the game
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  against Michigan in two hundred and sixty two days. It is March. That
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  means it is time for March Madness. Trademark trademark no copyright infringement intended means
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  it is time for the Big Ten Tournament to start today in Minneapolis. Buckeyes
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  do not play until tomorrow because all of a sudden. Ohio State basketball is
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  good question mark, but it has been quite a turnaround since the firing of
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  Chris Holtman and the replacement of him with a interim coach, Jake Diebler.
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  And now the question is how much further can Jake Diebler get this Ohio State
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  basketball team to go. I'm joined today by Kevin Noon of bucke Huddle dot
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  com. He just wrote a Big Ten Tournament by the Numbers piece at buckey
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  Huddle dot Com, which I thought was really interesting. I wanted to talk
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  to him about that as well as you sort of give a little preview of
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  this week's Big Ten Tournament. Kevin, heading into this Buckey's on a five
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  and one streak since the firing of Chris Holtman, and they have not played
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  the strongest schedule. But they beat Michigan State, they beat Nebraska, they
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  beat Perdue, who is projected as the number one overall seed in the country,
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  two road wins. They hadn't done that since in conference play in fourteen
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  months, and won a single game. Jake Diebler won more Big Ten games
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  this year than Chris Holtman. I know after the Purdue game, Matt Painter
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  said, listen, listen, listen. The coaching change had nothing to do
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  with anything, nothing to do with anything. If it was Chris Holtan it
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  would have been the exact same result. So okay, Kevin, assuming that
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  that Painter is not just covering for his buddy Chris Holtman, what has been
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  the difference that Ohio State basketball has gone from terrible and unwatchable to suddenly interesting
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  and winning all the time. Well, I think when you really look at
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  it, it's a case of Ohio State is playing with house money at this
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  point. Nobody expects the interim coach, especially a young interim coach who really
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  has not been in the profession that long has not piloted his own pro there's
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  no real expectation that he's going to get the job, so he can play
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  loose or he can coach loose. And I think that one of the real
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  downsides in the Holtman era toward the end was that he coached really tight.
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  He would shorten his bench, he would overthink things a little too much,
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  and that's when you would see the second half collapses. And under Jake Diebler
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  that's not been the case. Jake Diebler's not been afraid to go deeper into
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  his bench. We're seeing more minutes out of Tyson Chapman, out of Devin
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  Royal. We were seeing some some lineups out there that maybe we hadn't seen
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  as much of before. And it just really seems that the team has responded
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  well in these situations. Sure we can talk about that the schedule has not
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  been as difficult as it could have been in some eyes, but his college
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  basketball this year or there are really that many great teams, This is a
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  down year for the Big Ten. In my opinion, this is not going
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  to be a ten bid lead league. Say that ten times past a ten
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  bid league for any stretch of the imagination. This is you know, the
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  Big ten is going to probably be lucky to get seven in if we're being
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  quite honest. And that's just with me going with all of the one bid
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  leagues out there are going to present one team as opposed to the bid Steelers
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  and things of that nature. But when it comes to Ohio State down the
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  stretch, I really just think that there is no longer this this cloud of
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  is Chris Holtman going to lose his job? I mean, is this?
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  I mean, who's going to be the guy that's going to do this very
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  well liked coach. I don't care what people say on social I have never
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  met Anybody's like I don't like Chris Holtman as a person, but there were
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  a lot of people that were like, it may be time for him to
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  move on in terms of couch Yeah, I was. I started really wondering
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  when that trigger was going to get pulled after they lost at Michigan. Michigan
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  is so bad. Michigan is like a dismally bad one of the worst Michigan
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  programs since I don't know, like the Brian Ellerby era. And they lost
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  at Michigan, and at that point it was kind of like all right,
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  well, when is this going to happen? You do sort of wonder,
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  boy, if the acts had fallen a little earlier, and they had maybe
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  picked up another win or two that among some winnable games in January and February,
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  if they might already be in the NCAA tournament field. But either way
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  at their Big Ten Tournament run starts Thursday six thirty on Big Ten Network against
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  Iowa and Kevin. This is always an event every year where it just seems
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  like, you know, everyone fills out their NCAA tournament brackets. If you
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  were going to fill out a Big Ten Tournament bracket, it might be almost
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  as difficult as filling out the NCAA bracket because this event is such a random
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  result generator every year. Ye last year, I don't know if you remember,
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  this was like a vague memory at best for me. They were the
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  thirteen seed. They beat Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan State before losing to Evancho
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  champion Purdue in the semis. As a thirteen seed. Two years ago,
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  they were the six and they lost in the first round six to eleven seeded
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  Penn State. Three years ago, there were the five. They beat Minnesota,
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  perdue top seeded Michigan and then lost in the final and overtime to Illinois.
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  This is an event every year that I think you could just kind of
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  look at it and go, yeah, just about anyone in this thing could
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  be playing on Sunday other than probably Michigan here, Yeah, exactly, this
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  is not going to be a year for Chalk in the Big Ten tournament in
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  my opinion. Now watch the top four seeds will be playing on Saturday,
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  and wow, that was a miss. Freezing cold takes alert. Kevin's an
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  idiot, but well we've known that for a long time. But yeah,
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  I don't really have a great read on what's going to happen because I've watched
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  Purdue, I mean, and just take the Ohio State game off of the
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  board. I mean, I've watched Purdue kind of mess around and mess around,
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  and I think that Purdue's guard play is not good enough to to to
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  win at all. And I'm with that, I'm talking in the n C
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  two A tournament, but I think that they could run into some buzzsaws in
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  the league. I've seen Illinois be a real chuckle and high team when Northwestern
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  is getting a double buy. I mean, you know what, what what
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  is going on here? What? What exactly are we are we looking at?
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  So I think that this is going to be a must watch tournament for
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  a lot of fans because unless you're unless you're a fan of that team up
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  north, I think anybody, yeah, can can string together a couple of
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  games, I mean, and and then it comes down to who's deep,
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  who has enough of a rotation that you're not dead leg by Sunday. And
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  you know, so there's so much into it, and I think that will
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  Ohio State tighten up a little bit knowing that the n two A Tournament is
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  in consideration potentially with a deep enough run, do we see some of those
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  issues there? Does Jake Diebler keep just coaching the same way that he has
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  for the previous six games to get the Buckeys to whatever point it may be,
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  I mean, whether it's the n C two A Tournament, the NIT
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  whatever may be in the cards, because you're right, it's kind of crazy
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  to think that this team finishing what was it, nine and eleven in conference
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  play. I mean, we were looking at a team that was racing Michigan
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  for the basement this year, and now you have a team that I won't
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  go so far as to say they're a dark horse to win the Big Ten
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  tournament. That's a leap, but I wouldn't want them on. I wouldn't
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  want to face them if I was another team in the Big Ten because Ohio
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  State's playing just about as well as anybody in conference right now. This feels
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  like one of these college football playoff conversations that we have towards the end of
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  the football season, where it's like, well, they didn't have the best
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  record, they didn't have the best whatever, but they're you know, they're
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  the hottest team in the country right now. You know, I don't.
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  I don't know that anyone wants to see Ohio State on their bracket. Joe
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  Lonardi has Iowa as a you need to win more one more game, So
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  there is a lot on the line for this Ohio State Iowa game. Iowa
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  probably needs to win one more to get in. He has Ohio State as
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  you need to beat Iowa and then you need to win another one after that.
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  I mean, is that kind of what what you're thinking that you know,
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  maybe you get two wins and you're looking at sneaking into the back door
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  and playing a game in Dayton on what next Tuesday, Wednesday, something like
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  that. A lot of people still get hung up on that twenty wins number,
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  and twenty wins is not what it used to be, so I don't
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  look so much there. But I did say when Chris Holtman was relieved of
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  his coaching duties that what would it take for Ohio State to get into the
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  ncat A Tournament? I said, if they go five and one, and
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  he went, and he gets this team to Saturday in the Big Ten tournament,
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  Well they went five and one and what you just mentioned right there get
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  Ohio State to Saturday. So you know, do I know that that's going
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  to be enough? No, you just don't know. And as I had
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  mentioned earlier, you don't know what's going to happen in terms of some of
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  these one big leagues. Do you have big Steelers, what happens with all
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  of that. That's why there's just this is such a great week. I
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  have really fond memories of Championship Week when I was in college and maybe going
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  to class, maybe not going to class, and sitting around and drinking beer
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  and watching, you know, watching all these games, all these you know,
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  minor conference games just to kind of see what was going to happen.
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  Granted, when I was in college there was a guy named Jimmy Jackson at
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  Ohio State, so the tournament wasn't as much in doubt as it is this
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  year. But but yeah, it's it's it's kind of it's kind of nuts
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  to just think that the this team is four halves a basketball potentially away from
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  playing its way into the tournament. And yeah, they're gonna be. People
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  are gonna be like, well, to get in as an eleven and have
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  to go play in Dayton in the first four, you have to win that
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  game to really consider yourself to be in the tournament. No, you're in
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  the tournament. As much as we may hate sixty eight versus sixty four,
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  I grew up watching sixty four. Well what it is now it's sixty eight,
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  and that gets you in and that you know that certainly is worth something.
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  And it creates the question then of what do you do about Jake Diebler
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  because you have to figure that that Ross by Ork is chomping at the bit
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  to make a coaching hire there and a lot of times hiring the interim coaches
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  not sexy, but you know, this team sits there and has this meteoric
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  rise and makes the tournament. What is the ground swell going to be?
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  Like? What is the board of trustees going to think? I just I
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  have no idea. It's it's fascinating. It is fascinating, and you know,
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  I think there were a lot of well, he'd have to do all
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  of this stuff to be considered for the job, and he's started checking those
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  boxes. So it's a little more of a conversation than it was a couple
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  weeks ago. We're going to know a lot more, probably in three days
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  or so, in terms of where he might end up. But just in
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  case, we do a free decades Tony first me. Then Tony did a
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  column on first The Ozone and then now at Bucky Huddle called the tip Sheet
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  where we would sort of give you sort of rooting interest during football season.
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  And this started during like the BCS ERA and hey, Ohio State needs these
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  teams to lose on this Saturday, So here's your tip sheet for conference championship
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  weekend. Here are the other bubble teams, according to Joe Lenardi, who
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  you are hoping to see lose early in their conference tournaments. Colorado Virginia,
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  Saint John's, Texas A and M New Mexico, Wake Forest, Villanova,
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  Pittsburgh, Iowa. I State could help themselves out there, Providence and Memphis,
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  so other teams you maybe are looking looking to see taken early l in
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  their conference tournaments. That might help the Buckeyes light in the side door with
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  only one win if a bunch of that stuff goes right for them. We
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  talked earlier about how this is a really unpredictable event, and you know,
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  the buck guys are a ten seed. This is I think you said,
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  the first time they've ever been a ten seed in the tournament. But you
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  look back at the over the years, the winning percentage of the ten seed
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  not great. But there is some hope for the ten seed based on what
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  happened in last year's Big Ten Tournament, right. I don't have the number
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  in front of me, funny that I wrote by the numbers piece, but
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  I believe it's fourteen and twenty four is the record of the ten seed,
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  and that could be a little bit off because of the doctoring of the books
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  when you have vacated seasons and things of that nature. That doesn't change anything
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  for Ohio State again, as you'd mentioned that, I mentioned Ohio State has
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  never been a ten seed or a four seed strangely enough in this tournament,
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  but the ten seed Penn State last year made it all the way to the
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  championship game. The ten seed has never won the Big Ten Tournament, but
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  has made the finals twice, last year being one of them, and obviously
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  one other time. So it does show the unpredictability. And we have seen
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  a double digit seed in a lot of these years, recently escape Thursday.
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  I mean, because you know, Wednesday is all well and good, but
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  we know at that point, you know, you have fourteen and eleven and
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  twelve and thirteen playing each other, so there's all double digit seeds. But
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  will a double digit seed escape Thursday to get into Friday? And I certainly
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  remember through the years some years that have been really chalking when it comes to
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  the Big Ten tournament. But I think in terms of a lot of the
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  major conference tournaments, the Big Ten can be a little less predictable than other
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  leagues. Does that go to the fact that the Big Ten is just so
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  competitive in so many years, maybe this year if not standing or is it
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  a case of it's you know, it's just the big big ten isn't all
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  that great and there's not much separation between three and ten in your in your
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  in your conference, don't I don't necessarily know what the case is this year,
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  but this is not going to be something if you just live and die
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  by the numbers of saying, well, Ohio States has got this huge uphill
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  battle being a ten seat. I mean, ten seeds do win. There's
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  never really been a case of where a ten goes into Thursday as like a
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  prohibit of favorite. So I mean we're talking about a lot of wins by
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  underdogs through the years of this tournament that has gone on and keeps changing the
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  way that it's set up, and we'll change once again with the addition of
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  the four West Coast teams. But at that point it sounds as if the
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  plan is not all eighteen teams are going to make it so you don't have
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  to worry about being an eighteen seed and what's going to happen there, because
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  you're going to be sitting on your butt at home and your coach is probably
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  going to be cleaning out his office well heading into this last year of whatever
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  the current format as the fourteen team current format before you get to whatever it's
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  going to be next year. I did want to touch on one of my
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  favorite random sports fact that you say it out loud and people go that's not
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  right, and then they google it and they go, well, son of
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  a gun, that's right. How about that Big Ten has held their conference
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  tournament since nineteen ninety eight. This so long ago, the first conference tournament,
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  Michigan won it and had it vacated due to the Ed Martin scandal.
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  It's the same scandal that brought down the Fab five banners also impacted Robert practor
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  Trailer, who was the most outstanding player on that tournament team, and they
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  so that first one got pulled down. Nineteen ninety eight is when the tournament
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  started. Seven of the fourteen current Big Ten teams have won. You wrote
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  about this in your column Ohio State, Michigan State, Illinois, Michigan,
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  Wisconsin, Iowa, and Purdue. You will notice I did not say the
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  word Indiana there. Indiana, Kevin. More than twenty five years of this
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  event, the Indiana Hoosiers have never won it. That ranks up there in
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  terms of the craziest things you think of Indiana as a basketball school, and
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  that hasn't really been true for quite a while now. But even so,
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  you would have thought they would have just like backed into one at some point.
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  They've been playing it right up the road in Indianapolis for a huge chunk
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  of those twenty five years. How How I don't I don't understand. How
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  is that possibly true? That that's one of the craziest things I can remember,
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  Because let's look at Indiana coaching. Bobby Knight only coached like two times
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  in the in the Big Ten tournament, and he was at the end of
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  his run before he went to Texas Tech. So Indiana has had a cast
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  of characters go through Bloomington as as head coaches. And it's been a minute
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  since Indiana has really been worth a darn on a national scene. Apologies to
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  any Hoosiers who are watching, but it's just true. I mean, you
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  look at all the banners that are there in Assembly Hall and they're just not
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  a lot of ones that are of current dates. And then even when you
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  do have a good team, bad luck in the big it's one and done.
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  You sit there and you have a bad game and you just don't win.
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  But you know, Indiana has has flirted with it. I mean,
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  you know, we, oh boy, Indiana versus Purdue in Indianapolis, this
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  is going to be amazing. And then Purdue's like, now, we're not
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  going to allow this to be amazing. So I'm going to go out on
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  a limb and say that that streak continues. Indiana did give Mike Woodson the
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  vote of confidence he will be back next year. Their best player asked for
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  a release from his letter of intent after that news came out shortly thereafter.
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  So I don't think this Indiana team, even even with its big home win
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  against Michigan State, is going to be able to string together a couple few
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  wins to snap that streak. But it is. It is kind of crazy
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  because if you look at the Big Ten schools and you say which school is
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  most synonymous with basketball, it's going to be Indiana and they've just had next
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  to no success in this tournament. And that's just it's unfathomable. Yeah,
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  in the Big in the Big Ten Tournament era, the Hoosiers have won or
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  tied for the regular season Big Ten championship three times two thousand and one to
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  two thousand and two under Mike Davis. That was the year they lost the
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  nc DOUAA Tournament final to Maryland. They were the NCUBLEA runner up. They
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  went one and one in the Big Ten Tournament that year Tom Crane twenty twelve
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  to twenty thirteen, they finished first. Twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen, they
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  finished first. They never got more than one win there, two and three
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  all time in the Big Ten Tournament as a regular season champion. That's a
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  weird one. So they can't win win they're the top seed. They also
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  can't win win there any other seed. So Indiana basketball see if the streak
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  ends this this week in Minneapolis. We will see if Jake Deebler can keep
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  the streak going for the Buckeyes. This week in Minneapolis should be a boy
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  a surprisingly a shockingly interesting week of Ohio state basketball. Did not see this
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  one coming, But we'll see if the Buckeyes can keep it rolling this week
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  in Minneapolis. We will have coverage at Buckeye huddle dot com. We'll have
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  coverage at YouTube dot comslash Buckeye Huddle, all the usual places where you find
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  our football stuff. We have basketball stuff there too. We will have football
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  stuff there. Don't as well, don't worry. We'll be back with another
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  look at football tomorrow. Buck Guy is currently off this week for spring break,
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  but they will be back for spring ball, resuming with practice number three
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  next week. We'll be talking about all of it at bucke huddle dot com
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  and YouTube dot com slash Bucket Huddle. We hope to see you there.
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  That'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us. Have
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  a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.