Ohio State basketball faces a toxic crisis with a faltering roster and coaching woes. Can the program recover?
scarletandgame.com
The Toxic Trap Sinking Ohio State Basketball
Ohio State basketball is spiraling into chaos, caught between a toxic reputation and a roster on the brink of collapse. The current Athletic Director is left cleaning up a mess years in the making, with no easy way out.
There may not be a worse place for a basketball program to be right now than Ohio State. The Buckeyes men’s basketball program is caught in the midst of bad decision-making, a toxic reputation, and a roster that is hanging in the balance of a few players.
The current Athletic Director (AD), Ross Bjork, is reaping what the previous AD, Gene Smith, sown. Jake Diebler is a first-year head coach in college basketball, and it shows. Personally, Diebler is great. He seems like a stand-up guy, a good father, and one who deeply cares about the program and his players. But he is at the center of trying to rebound from one of the worst situations in Ohio State basketball history.
The downward spiral began when the previous AD extended Chris Holtmann in the summer of 2022. Less than two years later, Holtmann would go 30-30 and be fired by Smith months before retirement. In Holtmann’s place, it was announced that the incoming AD Ross Bjork promoted Diebler to be the head coach after being an assistant from Holtmann’s staff who finished the regular season 5-1 with wins over two of the best coaches in the conference in Matt Painter and Tom Izzo.
It seemed like a feel-good story then—the young coach from Ohio stepping up to breathe life into a troubled program. But this season, that optimism has evaporated, replaced by a grim reality: Diebler’s tenure is shaping up to be a cautionary tale.
From the beginning of the offseason, Diebler’s actions raised eyebrows. He went into the portal to find unproven players with high recruiting rankings but little to show for it on the court. Although he brought back former player Meechie Johnson, he also had current players who helped him end the season well: Felix Okpara, Roddy Gayle Jr., and Scotty Middleton.
From the outside looking in, the strategy seemed flawed. Instead of building off the team, he had to assemble a roster that fit, and he chased unproven talent through the transfer portal. His top three targets turned out to be major disappointments, leaving him with freshmen who were thrust into roles way too early and players having to play out of position. The players who got him the job in the first place? He seemed to let them walk away so he could bring in guys with more national buzz.
Even through all of that, Diebler’s roster had enough juice to hover around the NCAA Tournament bubble. Led by Bruce Thornton, Devin Royal, Micah Parrish, and Evan Mahaffey, the team formed a core that, on paper, should keep Ohio State competitive in the Big Ten.
But here’s the rub: Parrish will be gone as he is out of eligibility, but if Diebler can’t hold onto the other three, the Buckeyes could plummet to the basement of the conference next season. Those three have given everything this year, only to be let down by teammates and coaching. And in the world of NIL and the transfer portal, fans can’t blame them if they decide to look around and weigh their options of where they should play next year.
The biggest problem, though, is that Ohio State can’t move on from Diebler, even if they wanted to. Diebler most likely has a future in coaching, but this program was simply not right for a first-year head coach, and it’s too unstable for a coach who is still learning and growing at the needed rate. The program’s reputation locally and nationally is anything but positive.
Locally, the fans are not pleased and haven’t been pleased for years. This helps create the national reputation that Ohio State is a pressure cooker atmosphere that few coaches will want to try and endure. Also, the home-court advantage at Value City Arena is nearly nonexistent.
The arena is too big, too far from the students, and was built more for concerts than it was for basketball. Among many, it is known as one of the weakest home-court advantages in high-major college basketball. And finally, firing a first-time head coach after one season—especially one who isn’t outright tanking—would only further increase the thought that Ohio State is a volatile, coach-killing gig.
No one worth hiring would touch it. Especially not when the team finishes as a bubble team following year one, and you could get let go at a program that has only made the tournament four times in the past nine tournaments.
In addition to all of that, the Buckeyes play tight and unconnected basketball, with only a few players showing trust in one another. The ball doesn’t move on offense, and the best players on the team are forced to have the weight of the team on their shoulders night in and night out.
Fans’ displeasure is loud, and the team hears it. But what might be even worse is that they don’t seem to disagree with it. It’s a vicious cycle: a fractured roster feeding into a toxic atmosphere, which in turn deepens the fractures.
The mess of Ohio State basketball is far more than just hiring too young of a coach. The current AD is left with upset fans, a coach floundering with roster construction, and trying to build up what was being torn down for years. The team isn’t bad enough in year one to justify a complete reset, but it’s bad enough to widen the rift between the program and fans when the program needs fan support more than ever.
No matter what happens the rest of the year, Diebler must find a way to keep Thornton, Royal, and Mobley on this team. They’re the core of the team and the difference between a salvageable season and a full-on collapse. Lose them, and Ohio State basketball could be near rock bottom in the Big Ten. The good news is that Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) exists, and The Foundation is one of the best NIL collectives in college athletics.
.
.
.
continued
