As we get closer and closer to Selection Sunday, which falls on March 15 this year, the biggest question Ohio State fans have been asking over the last few weeks is “How many games do we need to win to get in to the NCAA Tournament?”
With at least five games remaining, the Ohio State men’s basketball team (17-10, 9-7) controls its own destiny with regards to the NCAA Tournament. The guaranteed – but far less likely – route to punching a ticket would be to win the Big Ten Tournament in Chicago and
grab one of the 31 automatic bids.
The more likely route is to earn one of the 37 “at-large” bids to the tournament. The at-large bids are earned based on overall resume and, to an extent, are subjective and based on the collective opinion of the NCAA Tournament committee. Even with that fear of the unknown floating out there, Ohio State has enough games remaining to leave no doubt, and high-caliber opponents that will sweeten the resume if they can win those
games.
Ohio State’s remaining games are: at Iowa (Feb. 25), home against No. 8 Purdue (Mar.1), at Penn State (Mar. 4), and home against Indiana (Mar. 7). After that, they’re guaranteed at least one Big Ten Tournament game.
To succinctly answer the question posed in the very first paragraph: the Buckeyes need to win all four of their remaining regular season games to feel completely confident they’ll be in the NCAA Tournament. That would put them at 21 total wins and 13 Big Ten wins before even playing in the Big Ten Tournament.
Anything less, and there’s at least a slight chance that the Buckeyes are left out. As of Monday night, Ohio State was listed as the second team left out of the NCAA Tournament, according to Bracket Matrix. The margins get even slimmer if there are bid stealers during conference tournaments.
That’s where Ohio State’s neighbors to the west, the Miami Redhawks, become very relevant.
For those who have not been paying attention to college basketball outside of the Ohio State bubble, Miami, led by former Xavier head coach Travis Steele, is having its best season in program history, going back 127 years. The Redhawks are 27-0 this season, have moved up to No. 21 in the AP Poll, and are four wins away from completing the first 18-0 season in MAC history. They’re the only remaining unbeaten team in the country and potentially pose a serious problem to teams like Ohio State, which is hovering on the edge of being included in the NCAA Tournament.
The reason, as hinted at above, is that the Redhawks’ success has offered them cushion that mid-major teams rarely have heading into their conference tournament.
The Mid American Conference is traditionally one of the many “one bid” leagues in America. That means whichever team wins the MAC Tournament will earn the automatic bid (one of the 31) to play in the tournament, and that is it for that league, because nobody else in the MAC will have a resume that stacks up to the various other “bubble” teams in the country.
For example, Akron won the 2025 MAC Tournament, beating (coincidentally) Miami to earn the league’s automatic bid. The second-place team in the regular season, Miami, was 25-9 overall, and 14-4 in league play. However, their NET ranking (147) and five Quad-3/4 losses made them a non-starter for an at-large bid.
This year, it’s different. This year, Miami could become the first team in the league to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament since 1999, when the Redhawks danced as an at-large team alongside league winner Kent State.
Obviously, Miami is not in the business of losing basketball games, so Steele and his Redhawks would much prefer to win their final four games against Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Toledo, and Ohio and then win the MAC Tournament as well, which would make them a perfect 34-0 heading into the NCAA Tournament, where they will likely be a 10 or 11-seed if that was to happen.
But if the Redhawks were to finish the season undefeated and then lose to one of the league’s top teams in the MAC Tournament, Miami would likely still get an at-large bid, making the MAC a two-bid league for the first time in 27 years.
If Miami was to hypothetically lose in the first round of the MAC Tournament after going undefeated in the regular season, they’d be 31-1 with a NET rating inside the top-50, most likely. Plus, the optics of leaving a team with 31 wins out, whether fair or not, will play into the NCAA Tournament committee’s decision.
A few weeks ago, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi was asked about this exact scenario on “College Basketball Live” on February 1. He was asked “If they (Miami) run the table but have a bad Saturday and don’t win their conference championship, what are the chances of them getting into the field with their current resume?”
“I think if the loss comes during the conference tournament, they’re going to make it,” Lunardi said.
“If and only if, for this reason – the optics of leaving out a team that was undefeated? I just can’t imagine that happening. They may also be pretty solidly in the at-large field by that point, right now they’re right around the cut line, numerically. So then it’s an issue of who that loss is to, right? You know, if they lose in the quarterfinals to an 8 or a 9-seed, that might bring a little doubt, and doubt might creep into fans of the RedHawks. But good heavens, an undefeated regular season and not make the tournament? I hope I don’t live to see that.”
Aside from Lunardi’s clerical error that only eight teams make the MAC Tournament (so, Miami could not lose to a 9-seed like he suggested in that hypothetical scenario), ESPN’s bracketologist pretty much runs down the exact scenario above, and thinks that if Miami finishes 18-0 in the MAC, they’ve got a very good chance to take one of those at-large bids.
Why is this relevant to Ohio State fans? Well, as stated at the top, there’s 37 at-large bids in the NCAA Tournament. Every “bid stealer” means one less at-large bid available to those teams hovering near the cut line, like Ohio State, New Mexico, TCU, and others. Every team that wins its conference tournament that wouldn’t have otherwise earned an at-large bid – like Akron, Kent State, or anyone else in the MAC this season aside from Miami – means one fewer at-large bid for the bubble-dwelling teams from major conferences.
That’s what makes the question of “What does Ohio State need to do in their last four games to make the NCAA Tournament?” so difficult to answer. Technically, the only equation that would guarantee Ohio State a place in the NCAA Tournament is winning the Big Ten Tournament – that would make them safe from a hypothetical scenario where there is an unprecedented and nearly impossible number of “bid stealers” messing everything up for Ohio State.
Miami has a 74% chance or better to win each of their last four games according to KenPom, so while there’s no guarantee they win out, the odds are in their favor for now. If that was to happen, Ohio State fans might want to tune in to the MAC Tournament, starting March 12, and root for their neighbors from the west to continue their winning ways until Selection Sunday.
