The Ohio State baseball team had a May to forget, and that fact is punctuated by the bracket for the Big Ten tournament in Minneapolis. When the calendar page left April behind, the Buckeyes were in third place in the conference, just a game and a half behind frontrunning Illinois.
After finishing up the final three weekends of Big Ten play with a 1-8 record that included sweeps by the Illini and Indiana, Ohio State fell to the No. 7 seed. The team will open the conference tournament at Target Field on Wednesday against 2nd seeded Iowa, who finished 19-5 in Big Ten play. First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET.
The Buckeyes finished the regular season with a 35-18 record, 13-11 in Big Ten play, an improvement over last year's 10-14 mark.
Prior to a home series with Illinois, the Buckeyes had cracked the top 25 in the national polls for the first time since 2009. There was even some discussion that Bill Davis Stadium could be the host of a regional if the team finished strong. Now Ohio State finds itself in need of a solid showing in the Big Ten tournament just to make the NCAA field of 64.
Last season, the Buckeyes were eliminated from the conference tournament, held in Omaha, after losses to Nebraska and Illinois. Ohio State has not won the Big Ten tourney title since 2007, and has not made a regional since 2009.