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With apologies to the title of this column, a better question should be which Buckeyes will we get come March? Because OSU has any potential identity covered.

You want a team that lost at home to Florida and got waxed at Indiana? There is an OSU to fit that. You want the team that beat Duke and Wisconsin? Got one of those OSUs, too.

To be frank, Ohio State is the kind of team that will either make a lot of people wealthy or a lot of people angry in March. The Buckeyes have a dependable All-American and enough talent to easily make a Sweet 16 or an Elite Eight run. Or they could draw a surprising mid-major who could end their NCAA dreams in a hurry. Here’s the good and bad news for the Buckeyes, who just lost to Rutgers on Wednesday night to fall to 14-6, 7-4 in the B1G.

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What has worked

EJ Liddell has been everything he’s supposed to be. The superb junior is averaging right at 20 points per game and nearly 8 boards per game. He leads the Buckeyes in blocked shots and is 2nd on the team in assists. He’s scored in double figures in every OSU game, and should be an easy All-American pick.

Freshman guard Malaki Branham has shown some impressive explosiveness, although not a ton of consistency. He’s broken 20 points in 3 of OSU’s past 9 games, including a 35-point domination of Northwestern. Zed Key is gritty and gutty — still the guy who saved the season-opening near loss to Akron. And senior shooter Justin Ahrens has one of my favorite stats in college basketball. He’s 38-for-105 from 3-point range. And exactly 1-for-4 from inside the arc on the season. The entire season. Just 14 of his 366 career shots have come from inside the arc.

What hasn’t worked

OSU’s defense is more based on containment than dominance. Only 1 Buckeye has more than 13 steals. They also tend to rely too much on their offense. When the Buckeyes don’t reach 70 — which they didn’t Wednesday — they are 2-5, and that includes the season-opening last-second escape win over Akron.

Aside from Liddell, virtually everybody else struggles with consistency. OSU has struggled to keep everybody healthy and active, and really is still putting their team together. They’ve missed 5 games, which might have been something near business as usual last season but does stand out this year.

What’s to come

The Buckeyes trail Illinois, Purdue, Michigan State and Wisconsin in the B1G standings. They still have to play at Illinois and host Michigan State. That said, most of the other games look pretty easy, and a 6-2 or 7-1 run to end the regular season is plausible. That would probably lift the Buckeyes to around 3rd in the conference standings. It’s a very competitive league, and while OSU would have a puncher’s chance in the conference tournament, they’re more likely to make a run and lose around the semifinals than to win it.

Joe Lunardi has the Buckeyes as a No. 5 seed, which feels about right. Go 7-1 to finish the regular season and OSU jumps to a No. 4 seed and maybe even a No. 3. On the other hand, more uninspired road play could drop the Bucks to a No. 6 or No. 7 seed. If OSU is indeed a No. 5, they’re the sort of team that could be a tough matchup for a No. 1 seed without a dominant big man. Lunardi has them in Baylor’s bracket, which would be interesting.

At the same time, Lunardi has OSU facing the winner of a play-in game between San Diego State and Oregon. “First Four” teams are 18-20 after the opening game win, which gives the winner of such a game almost a coin toss chance of pulling the upset in the next game.

Do we get the OSU that goes to the Sweet 16 or maybe even pulls an upset to get to the Elite Eight? Keep Liddell playing at a high level, work up the team’s depth and get some consistency, particularly with Branham. Or do we get a team that sees Liddell pick up a couple of cheap fouls in his first game and gets a cold shooting night from outside and loses by 8 to a random 12 seed? Either is possible. For now, we’ll say the Buckeyes project to continue building and win two NCAA Tournament games. But they definitely bear watching.