2013 NCAA Tournament Bracketology Update: Ohio State forecasts

Bracketology is in many ways a fool's errand. You're effectively attempting to leverage precognition of a group of people who won't for two plus weeks even genuinely begin to wrap their heads around the rather herculean task at hand. And yet, given that we're entering the home stretch of the college basketball season, even though Sports Illustrated has spring football on the forefront of their sporting consciousness, as basketball fans, we're still morbidly curious what this 2012-2013 Ohio State men's basketball team future has in store.

CBS Sports.com's Jerry Palm, long thought to be one of preeminent minds for not just BCS projections, but the NCAA tournament as well, has moved beyond the paywall model and now provides his primacy meriting forecasting free of charge to the Internet at-large. In his latest look at what's yet to come, Palm foresees the Buckeyes landing a 6-seed in the West bracket set to face 11-seeded Villanova in the Lexington, KY pod. A pretty reasonable road trips for Buckeye basketball die hards – and not a bad draw to boot.

SB Nation's Chris Dobbertean, a relatively newer cat on the scene but an authority none the less, is a bit more favorable towards Thad Matta's bunch's prospects. SBN's resident bracketologist projects the Buckeyes to be a 5-seed in the South bracket, with a possible date in Kansas City, MO with tournaments of yesteryear darling, Belmont. The Bruins just destroyed Ohio University in a late season bracket buster 81-62 over the weekend and at 22-6, could spell trouble for a one dimensional Ohio State offense.

And then of course there's ESPN's Joe Lunardi. The relative gold standard for bracket projections, Lunardi sees the Buckeyes as a five seed as well, with a trip to Kansas City also though this time in the West to face the winner of a First Four contest between Kentucky and Villanova. DO. NOT. WANT. All things considered, Lunardi's latest, which was just updated Tuesday morning, has the Buckeyes in a bracket with Gonzaga as the one seed. That certainly would work.

Whether Ohio State winds up a five or a six or better yet, inexplicably takes down the likes of Indiana and makes some noise in the Big Ten Tournament to the tune of meritting a four seed, remains to be seen. I think we'll all agree, however, that whatever fate befalls them, it's certainly not bad for a team far too many professional Ohio State focused experts impulsively said wouldn't make the NCAA Tournament after an early January loss to Illinois.