If you’ve followed our writing nonsense here, you know we’ve always parrotted the notion that Ohio State turns on television sets. But that is generally when we talk about the pigskin flying around, not hoops. It now appears that OSU is garnering interest by college basketball fans (with a caveat) because the Big Ten Championship Game between Ohio State and Illinois was the most watch college basketball game of the entire season.
Ohio State lost to Illinois in overtime 91-88, and the game earned 3.678 million viewers before 6 p.m. according to CBS. Once the game went to overtime, that ballooned up to 5.783 viewers from 6 to 6:09 p.m. Of course, that’s the timeslot plenty of folks turned on their television sets and streaming devices to watch the NCAA selection show, but we’re sure they were pleasantly surprised to watch some high-stakes basketball to warm things up.
The top 6 most-watched college basketball games this season have aired on CBS, led by Sunday's Big Ten Championship Game pic.twitter.com/PyMg0p3NQR
— CBS Sports PR (@CBSSportsGang) March 16, 2021
As a reminder, CBS will air the first-round matchup between Ohio State and Oral Roberts on Friday.