{"id":705225,"date":"2026-04-08T12:55:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T12:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/705225\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T12:55:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T12:55:47","slug":"buckeyes-ready-for-ncaa-tournament-play-tcu-on-thursday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/705225\/","title":{"rendered":"Buckeyes Ready for NCAA Tournament, Play TCU on Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCAA Tournament 1st Round — Ohio State vs. TCU
Date:\u00a0March 19, 2026
Time:\u00a012:15\u00a0p.m.
Venue:\u00a0Bon Secours Wellness Arena \u2013 Greenville, S.C.
TV: CBS
Listen:\u00a0Ohio State Radio Network from Learfield<\/a>
Live Stats: NCAA.com<\/a>
Records: Ohio State 21-12 | TCU 22-11
Rosters:\u00a0Ohio State<\/a> | TCU<\/a>
Season Stats:\u00a0Ohio State<\/a> | TCU<\/a>
Game Notes:\u00a0Ohio State Media Center<\/a><\/p>\n

COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2013 Ohio State has earned a No. 8 seed in the East Region of the NCAA Tournament and will open with the first game of the day on Thursday against No. 9 seed TCU. Tip-off is set for 12:15 p.m. and the game will televised nationally on CBS.\u00a0Ian Eagle, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and Tracy Wolfson will call the action. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The game can also be heard on the Ohio State Radio Network from Learfield. Paul Keels and former Buckeye captain Ron Stokes are on the call. Westwood One will air the game nationally with Noah Eagle and LaPhonso Ellis calling the action.<\/p>\n

This is Ohio State\u2019s 32nd NCAA Tournament appearance. The Buckeyes are 52-30 all-time in the NCAA Tournament with one title coming in 1960.This will be Ohio State\u2019s first game in Greenville, S.C.Thursday\u2019s game will be the fifth meeting all-time between Ohio State and TCU and the first in the NCAA Tournament. The Buckeyes have won the previous four meetings but the team\u2019s haven\u2019t met since an 89-80 Buckeye victory in Fort Worth on Dec. 29, 1969.This is the first trip to the NCAA Tournament for the Buckeyes since 2022 when the seventh-seeded Buckeyes took down Sister Jean and Loyola Chicago in the opening round and then fell to No. 2 seed and eventual Final Four participant Villanova in the second round in Pittsburgh.\u00a0This will also be the first NCAA Tournament appearance for all of the Buckeye starting lineup as well as several other rotation players. Only two Buckeyes have NCAA Tournament experience as Puff Johnson was part of North Carolina\u2019s run to the championship game in 2022 and Josh Ojianwuna played in four NCAA Tournament games as a freshman and sophomore at Baylor in 2023 and 2024.\u00a0The Buckeyes went 1-1 at last week\u2019s Big Ten Tournament, beating Iowa 72-69 on Thursday and then falling to top-seeded Michigan 71-67 in the quarterfinals on Friday. Bruce Thornton led the Buckeyes in the win over Iowa as he notched game highs of 24 points and six rebounds. Christoph Tilly played well inside, finishing with 16 points while Amare Bynum had four dunks as part of his 11 points, four rebounds and a season-high four assists. Against Michigan, Thornton again led all scorers with 20 points while Devin Royal notched a double-double with 13 points and a game-high 11 rebounds.The loss to Michigan was the lone Buckeye loss in the last five games as they shoved their way into the tournament by playing their best ball of the season.\u00a0Bruce Thornton has set numerous records this season. He is the program\u2019s all-time leading scorer, the first four-time captain and the program\u2019s leader in free throws made. He has also now scored more points at the Big Ten Tournament than any Buckeye and has become just the second Big Ten player with 2,000 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists. We could probably keep going on his list of accomplishments but bottom line, he\u2019s really good.Junior Devin Royal topped 1,000 career points last Friday with his go-ahead three-pointer in the second half of the game against Michigan. He is the 62nd Buckeye all-time to eclipse the 1,000-point mark.\u00a0TCU is also playing well as of late, winning nine of its last 11 games since Feb. 7.\u00a0 David Punch leads the team in scoring (14.3 ppg) and rebounding (6.7 rpg).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

#GoBucks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NCAA Tournament 1st Round — Ohio State vs. TCUDate:\u00a0March 19, 2026Time:\u00a012:15\u00a0p.m.Venue:\u00a0Bon Secours Wellness Arena \u2013 Greenville, S.C.TV: CBSListen:\u00a0Ohio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-705225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116369200464193298","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}