There will be no postseason for the Ohio State women’s basketball team.
After a disappointing season that ended with a Big Ten tournament quarterfinals loss against No. 1 seed Penn State, 76-66, the Buckeyes found themselves on the outside looking in at the NCAA women’s tournament for the first time since coach Jim Foster’s arrival in 2002.
Nor will OSU partake in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT).
 An OSU spokesman confirmed Monday that the squad will pass on a bid to the tournament.
“Coach Foster and our administration talked it over and both parties decided that it would be in the best interest of the team not to play in the WNIT,” said team spokesman Adam Widman in an email.
While Widman did not immediately respond for comment as to why such a decision was made, Foster told Buckeye Sports Bulletin that the team’s health was a concerns factored into the choice.
The season marks the second straight year OSU has failed to capture either the Big Ten’s regular season championship or the conference’s tournament championship after winning at least one of the titles every season the previous six years.
A tough start to its Big Ten schedule ultimately doomed OSU, which lost seven of its first eight conference games. The Buckeyes finished the season ninth in the conference.
A late season surge, however, had given the Buckeyes hope of finding a spot on the tournament’s bubble, but the selection committee was not swayed by the stretch of games which saw OSU win 7 of 10 contests.
Despite the Buckeyes’ absence from the field of 64, the first- and second-round games of the NCAA women’s tournament’s Oklahoma City Region are scheduled to be played at St. John Arena beginning March 23.