They have yet to face a rated opponent. Their scheduling strength is a joke till the following two weeks. They won the national championship last year, returned the majority of their roster, and have yet to lose. The only team that can beat them is themselves.
Ohio State is for real. They are going to win the whole thing.
"Clearly, (Ohio State) is a tremendous team," Swinney said. They're skilled and talented enough to beat us and win the national title. But, in my opinion, it is not fair because three teams must play 13 games to win the championship while one team must play only eight. It's not fair, but that's the way college football is designed.
Swinney also commented on the fact that he could have had a chance at another National Championship if his players had won the last game of the season against Michigan. He said that his players played their hearts out and that they would have gone for two points instead of kicking the field goal that lost them the game.
He ended up saying that although they were close to being perfect, they were just not good enough to beat Michigan.
After the season, Swinney announced that he was sticking with JT Barrett as his quarterback for next year even though Dwayne Haskins was considered the leader of the pack. Swinney said that he didn't want to rush Haskins and that he wanted to give him time to recover from a torn labrum in his shoulder. However, there has been talk about Swinney changing his mind and giving Haskins a look this season.
For the most of the regular season in 2020–21, the Ohio State basketball team was very excellent. There's a reason they were seeded second in the NCAA Tournament. Even though they did not end the season as they had hoped, they demonstrated that they had talent. And with some additions this summer, they will be even better in 2021–22.
Ohio State has a history of producing great players in the NBA. They've had four number one picks (Jerry Lucas, Larry Nance, Jr., Aaron Craft, and Jahlil Okafor), two number two choices (Billy Owens and Shawn Marion), and two number three picks (Reggie Jackson and Gary Payton). The Buckeyes have also had five other players picked in the top 100 (Jeff Allen, Calvin Murphy, Marc Randall, Tyrone Wallace, and Charles Woodson).
And now they have another talented group that should be able to produce right away or soon after. With an overall record of 29-4 last year, they had the third best record in the Big Ten and they received an early seed for the NCAA Tournament. Their only loss came to eventual champion Virginia by one point. Without that game, they would have received a number one seed.
Overall, it can be said that Ohio State is a good basketball team. They have winning records each year, make the NCAA Tournament every year, and always bring excitement to their games.
Ohio State is presently ranked 81st. So that's something the Buckeyes will most likely need to improve on if they want to be real contenders for the NCAA Tournament in 2021. Ohio State is ranked eighth in the CBS Sports Top 25 and 1 daily college basketball rankings as of Monday morning.
In addition to OSU, six other schools from the Big Ten are ranked in the top 100: No. 1 Michigan, No. 2 Louisville, No. 3 Indiana, No. 4 Wisconsin, No. 11 Minnesota and No. 99 Purdue. That's more than any other conference has had ranked in the top 100.
Overall, Ohio is ranked 14th in the country. That's good for second place in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) behind only No. 1 Michigan who is also from the Big Ten.
The Buckeyes have been ranked in every major poll except one since they were unranked prior to the season starting. They spent two weeks ranked #1 in the preseason polls before being ousted by Duke in the first game of the season. Since then they've fallen as low as 81st in the national polls before rising back up.
Head coach John Groce is entering his 12th year at the helm of the program. He's never coached outside of the state of Ohio so he doesn't have any experience beyond college basketball.
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