While the college basketball season still has two more weeks to go, Ohio State’s men’s basketball season is over.

Ohio State’s 2021-22 season came to an end on Sunday, when the Buckeyes lost to Villanova in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Although the loss to Villanova wasn’t particularly surprising, it still made for an unsatisfying ending to the season as Ohio State has now gone nine years without making the Sweet 16.

The men’s basketball Buckeyes draw the majority of our focus on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, though we start by talking about some good news from the weekend in Ohio State sports, as Ohio State women’s hockey won its first-ever national championship and women’s basketball did what the men couldn’t by upsetting LSU and advancing to the Sweet 16.

Our discussion on the men’s basketball season that was starts about six minutes in, beginning with some conversation about the importance of the first-round win over Loyola but then looking at how the Buckeyes ultimately came up short of achieving their goals this season with another first-weekend NCAA Tournament exit. We agree that the lack of a consistent third scorer doomed the Buckeyes this season, and we consider whether that should be blamed more on injuries or simply not having a strong enough roster.

As the offseason begins for Chris Holtmann’s squad, we also look ahead to next season (beginning around the 28-minute mark) and why we aren’t bullish on next year’s Buckeyes being better than this year’s Buckeyes. With E.J. Liddell, a bunch of seniors and possibly Malaki Branham leaving, we believe Ohio State will need to go transfer portal shopping for multiple veterans and will need several returning players – three in particular – to step up in a big way if the Buckeyes are going to have a chance to end their Sweet 16 drought in 2022-23.

If you just want to hear us talk about Ohio State football, skip ahead to the 46:30 mark, where we talk about the latest developments from spring practice, including the possibility that the Leo position might not be as heavily utilized as originally expected, ongoing concerns about the tight end position and how Sonny Styles could help the Ohio State basketball team (even though he’s expected to play only football at OSU).