Buckeyes practice today, play on Friday

By Bob Baptist

The Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS

It’s a nice tip of the cap to the Ohio State men’s basketball team that it finished the regular season ranked No. 1 and enters the NCAA tournament as the overall No. 1 seed.

But what does that do for the Buckeyes, other than create huge expectations among their fans?

In fact, the odds that the team will even make it to the Final Four are only a little better than 50-50.

And the chances it does that and also wins the school’s first national championship in 51 years? About 15 percent.

SDLqI did not know that,” coach Thad Matta said after emitting a nervous-sounding laugh. “I appreciate that. I’m going to sleep well tonight.”

Monday night was Matta’s last night in his own bed for a while. The Buckeyes (32-2) arrived in Cleveland on Wednesday, where they will practice today and begin their road to a hoped-for Final Four on Friday against Texas-San Antonio. The Roadrunners defeated Alabama State 70-61 on Wednesday night in Dayton.

A No.16 seed has never beaten a No.1 in an NCAA tournament. Beyond that, though, there have been upsets galore.

In the 26 years since the NCAA increased the tournament field to 64 teams in 1985, the team finishing the regular season ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press poll has made it to the Final Four 14 times.

In the seven years since the selection committee began ranking its four No. 1 seeds in 2004, three overall top seeds have made it to the Final Four.

“It’s the NCAA Tournament. You’ve got the best teams in the country,” Matta said. “If you’re fortunate enough to win, the one thing I’ve learned over time is the next opponent is always going to be better than the opponent you just beat.

“Being the No. 1 overall seed, no pun intended, you’ve got to deal with it and go.”

One of the myths of the selection process since the committee began ranking the four No. 1 seeds is that it attempts to bracket the overall No. 1 with what it considers to be the weakest No. 2 seed. Some think Florida is a weaker No. 2 than North Carolina, which was placed in the East with Ohio State.

“We don’t seed that way,” selection committee chairman Gene Smith, the Ohio State athletic director, said. “We search for balance” and to place the top four seeds in a region closest to home.

Matta said he is not concerned this week with the East bracket as a whole, but merely the pod the Buckeyes are in in Cleveland.

“As we’ve [told] our guys, we’ve got hopefully a two-game tournament here. Our focus is solely on the winner of the San Antonio-Alabama State game, and from there, we know we’ve got either Villanova or George Mason,” he said.

“We want to get through those, take a deep breath, and hopefully we’re coming home and getting ready to go on to the next spot.”