UCLA men’s basketball goes to Columbus to face Ohio State for a Saturday midday matchup. It’s only January 17, but this game feels unusually large for a mid-January Big Ten basketball battle.
UCLA and Ohio State are both bubble teams right now. Yes, there are two months of games before Selection Sunday, but the loser of this game will have reason to be at least a little nervous about its NCAA Tournament bubble position.
Neither UCLA nor Ohio State picked up big high-end wins in nonconference play. They have also failed to beat elite opponents in the Big Ten Conference. UCLA’s best win to date: Washington. Ohio State’s best win so far this season: maybe West Virginia, maybe Oregon. These teams simply haven’t scored quality wins and might need bulk of victories to offset the lack of heft on their resumes.
It’s not so much that the winner of this game will get a huge quality win; these are bubble teams, so a win will hold only so much value. The importance of this game is more about avoiding another loss. The loser will be left with very little margin for error going into late January and will need to beat one of the top teams in the Big Ten to get into the NCAA Tournament. The winner gives itself more of a chance to feast on the middle and lower parts of the Big Ten and make that stand up as enough of a resume for the Big Dance.
We won’t know what the standings look like in early March, but UCLA and Ohio State know that if they are both on the bubble on Selection Sunday, the team with the head-to-head win might inch ahead of the other. This is a real leverage game, even though we are two months from selection time for March Madness. The loser of UCLA-Ohio State won’t be finished — there’s way too much basketball left to be played — but it will face an uphill bubble climb as the winter moves along.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: It’s only January, but UCLA vs Ohio State has strong bubble flavor
Reporting by Matt Zemek, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
