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Thee Ohio State University News

ORD_Buckeye
AuTX Buckeye said:
between this and the Epstein/Wexner connections... uni not having a great 2026....
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Whole "institute" is a clown show. That "professor" didn't even have a Ph.D and has never accomplished any actual research or publications. He'd damn well better lose his job.

And the Wexner co-conspirator news means they really need to strip his name off the university. Whether he was a co-conspirator because he was raping the girls or, as I believe, because he financed the whole thing on behalf of a foreign intelligence service, his name needs to go. The endowment is over $8B now. We don't need King Leslie's money.
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2025-2026 Ohio State Men's Basketball

buckeyemania11
DZ83CK said:
I agree that recruiting NEEDS to improve, but the question is, does Diebler understand exactly where he & Holtmann went wrong? I'm not sure he does, but with more NIL resources in the future we'll at least be able to see if it's more of a lack of funding or lack of understanding issue.

Right now KenPom has OSU as the 26th-best offense in the country, which is good enough to be a tournament team. The problem is the defense is 76th-best, which is borderline NIT-level. Last year, offense #30, defense #50 - same problems. '24 offense was #39, defense #63. Now, you can still make the tournament with a bad defense and elite offense - between 2021 & 2022, OSU had two offenses in the top-13 of the country, and two defenses #82 or below & made it both years, and even though they did have EJ Liddell at least providing some backbone to the defense they didn't make the Sweet 16 in either season.

Obviously the recruiting philosophy has to change somewhat, we can't just keep doing the same things and falling into the same mistakes every year. My hope as I've said before is that more NIL resources will be available in the future to enable more higher level athletes to come into the program, but they will need to recognize that where they have gone wrong is defense, defense, defense and tweak their recruiting philosophy a bit to bring in the right guys. Maybe even having a couple starters who are plus defenders would do the trick - in 2020, they had Kaleb Wesson anchor the post and
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I think Diebler wants to be a fast-paced offensive minded team but with the current resources it's going to be hard to get guys who are high level both offensively and defensively at a consistent rate. He's almost certainly going to have to sacrifice offensive ability in the bigs department if he wants to have a shot at succeeding. Tilly for example isn't a bad player in the grand scheme, but he's definitely not cut out from a physical standpoint to go up against the bigs of the better B1G teams. These types of teams just brutalize us down low and, on the glass, we need stronger banger types down low, even though we might not be able to get guys who are equal to say what scUM, they need to be enough to where they at least can hope to compete with those types.
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2025-2026 Ohio State Men's Basketball

DZ83CK
If there's been one consistent weakness in the program over the last several years, it's been defensive rebounding. This team has not done well at preventing 2nd and 3rd chances, and it's a huge problem that needs to be fixed. I think it can only be fixed by making sure that you're bringing in the right guys. You've got to have bigs who can man up, hold their ground, and have hands like velcro vice grips that catch the ball when it comes to them & don't let it get knocked away - too often, we haven't had that.
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2025-2026 Ohio State Men's Basketball

DZ83CK
buckeyemania11 said:
I think the Diebler hire was a bad small time program level move, but I would never actively root against Ohio State and i'd tend to agree that it's pointless to fire him after this year. He's not getting fired after this year anyways, there's no way the AD pulls the plug. Next year though I think he needs to show clear improvement and COMFORTABLY make the tournament (none of this hoping to stumble in as one of the last few teams crap)

He has a top-level HS recruit incoming but he needs to hit at a better rate in the portal this year to accomplish this. Obviously, we probably aren't getting elite portal level guys, but they need to make much better evaluations when deciding on the guys that they are realistically able to get.

I also agree that Diebler himself is not the "big" problem, but personally I just see a guy who's to this point in over his head as the head coach at a bigger level program. That could change but I don't think you wait and hang on for like 5 years if the change doesn't start in year 3. Of course, there is no assurance they will upgrade but if it's obviously not there you have to pull the plug and give someone else a shot at some point.
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I agree that recruiting NEEDS to improve, but the question is, does Diebler understand exactly where he & Holtmann went wrong? I'm not sure he does, but with more NIL resources in the future we'll at least be able to see if it's more of a lack of funding or lack of understanding issue.

Right now KenPom has OSU as the 26th-best offense in the country, which is good enough to be a tournament team. The problem is the defense is 76th-best, which is borderline NIT-level. Last year, offense #30, defense #50 - same problems. '24 offense was #39, defense #63. Now, you can still make the tournament with a bad defense and elite offense - between 2021 & 2022, OSU had two offenses in the top-13 of the country, and two defenses #82 or below & made it both years, and even though they did have EJ Liddell at least providing some backbone to the defense they didn't make the Sweet 16 in either season.

Obviously the recruiting philosophy has to change somewhat, we can't just keep doing the same things and falling into the same mistakes every year. My hope as I've said before is that more NIL resources will be available in the future to enable more higher level athletes to come into the program, but they will need to recognize that where they have gone wrong is defense, defense, defense and tweak their recruiting philosophy a bit to bring in the right guys. Maybe even having a couple starters who are plus defenders would do the trick - in 2020, they had Kaleb Wesson anchor the post and
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2025-2026 Ohio State Men's Basketball

buckeyemania11
DZ83CK said:
The Fan giving the hot takes this morning, T-Bone claiming it would be better for OSU to NOT make the NCAA tournament and get rid of Diebler. What a trash take. First of all, you don't want to punish players who've given a lot to the program like Bruce Thornton who have their last chance at making the tournament this season. Second of all, Jake Diebler is not the main problem with the program, and getting rid of him won't solve the larger underlying issues with the hoops program at all. Thirdly, why root against the team that you're a fan of? Where's the fun in that?

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The larger problem is the Administration not supporting the program adequately with NIL and forcing whomever coaches the team to be at a disadvantage in comparison to the upper echelon teams in the B1G year in and year out. You also have a program with a basketball facility and experience that fans don't really care to be a part of unless it's a big game, and that's true regardless of the coach. We should not root against Jake Diebler at all because there's no guarantee at all that OSU will upgrade, and he's a good man who deserves more chances to build the roster to compete with the upper echelon teams in the B1G on a more level playing field, instead of one where the odds are stacked against him as it's been the past couple of years.

Coach Diebler does need to make an adjustment in recruiting to target guys who are going to be better at addressing the defensive shortcomings in the program - most importantly defensive rebounding, but also getting guys who can do a little bit more in terms of defending without fouling, getting more steals and blocked shots which will help as well and it all adds up. If we could just up the ante some with NIL & be a little more defense-oriented in recruiting, then I think things will fall in line.
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I think the Diebler hire was a bad small time program level move, but I would never actively root against Ohio State and i'd tend to agree that it's pointless to fire him after this year. He's not getting fired after this year anyways, there's no way the AD pulls the plug. Next year though I think he needs to show clear improvement and COMFORTABLY make the tournament (none of this hoping to stumble in as one of the last few teams crap)

He has a top-level HS recruit incoming but he needs to hit at a better rate in the portal this year to accomplish this. Obviously, we probably aren't getting elite portal level guys, but they need to make much better evaluations when deciding on the guys that they are realistically able to get.

I also agree that Diebler himself is not the "big" problem, but personally I just see a guy who's to this point in over his head as the head coach at a bigger level program. That could change but I don't think you wait and hang on for like 5 years if the change doesn't start in year 3. Of course, there is no assurance they will upgrade but if it's obviously not there you have to pull the plug and give someone else a shot at some point.
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