It's March Sadness again for Ohio college basketball teams

Ohio State has bragging rights when it comes to March Madness Final Four appearances, but it's been a while since the last one.

Why it matters: An Axios review of bracket history shows the longtime dominance of "blue blood" programs, while lesser-known schools like Cincinnati and Dayton have also reached the brightest lights.

Yes, but: Not this year, as Ohio teams saw early exits in 2025's NCAA Tournaments.

• The OSU women's squad got bounced at home in the Round of 32, while the low-seeded Xavier and Akron men's teams each lost in the first round.

The big picture: It's now been 13 years since an Ohio school reached the Final Four, when the OSU men's team lost a heartbreaking semifinal to Kansas in 2012.

Flashback: The Buckeyes dominated the early bracket years, losing the first national championship game in 1939 and making seven more Final Four appearances through 1968.

😮 That included a three-year stretch when OSU and Cincinnati made the Final Four together.

• OSU won it all in 1960 under Hall of Fame coach Fred Taylor and with legends John Havlicek, Jerry Lucas and Bob Knight, plus local East High School stars Mel Nowell and Joe Roberts.

Yes, but: Cincinnati beat OSU in the 1961 championship game, then did it again in 1962.

• (Can you imagine if that happened now?)

Only one women's team from Ohio has ever reached the Final Four — OSU made it to the 1993 title game thanks to the heroics of current assistant coach Katie Smith.

Zoom out: North Carolina and California have the most men's Final Four appearances.

• Eleven states have never had a school make it, and all 11 were shut out again this year.

Connecticut leads the way on the women's side with 23 UConn appearances under head coach Geno Auriemma.

• A larger number of states (23) have been shut out, mainly because the women's tournament began 43 years after the first men's event.
• Only No. 5 seed Kansas State is still alive from that group.