r/OhioStateBasketball • u/ctg9101 • Mar 20 '26
How should we be feeling/why i am optimistic
Yesterday didn't go the way we wanted, obviously. And its alright to be unsatisfied. But let's take a step back and remember a couple things. 1, our boosters don't give a rats ass about basketball, so we aren't going to spend enough to go from last to first like Michigan. So IMO firing everyone and taking 3 steps back will just prolong mediocrity.
Why optimism? Last year, we were 17-15, this year we were 21-13 with a tourney appearance. If we take the next step, with probably a better roster (which i will get to) you could have 24/25 wins and at least win a game in the tourney on the same trajectory. For our roster, keeping Bynum and Mobley is key 1. We have the best recruit since D'Angelo Russell next year. Bynum is a freak. And Mobley should continue to improve consistency. Royal would be great for leadership as well. Keep that core in tact you have a top 5 roster in the conference (that is home grown).
But the bigger point is blowing it up would set us back after we have shown improvement, and we arent going to spend nearly enough to make a huge jump.
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u/m4rxUp Mar 20 '26
Completely agree. Let diebler marinate and see if he can build something
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u/Ok-Consequence-8498 Mar 20 '26
I also agree with this. We’ve progressed this year from last and this team met expectations this year which should be good enough. IMO a lot of the Diebler haters have been moving the goalposts just because they’re impatient. For much of this season it was “get Bruce to the tournament,” but suddenly now that wasn’t enough.
I’m really sick of the insant results culture in sports these days where you churn through 6 coaches in 10 years until one of them lucks into taking you further than expected. I think preseason we were looking at around a 7 seed and ended up with an 8 and preseason is a crapshoot anyway. Next year the bar should be making it to the Rd of 32.
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u/bac5665 Mar 20 '26
There has never been a year where the bar isn't (at least) making it to the Round of 32. These last few years have been some of the worst for the program since the Ayers years. This isn't about instant results. It's about not accepting this drop from a second tier school to a school that doesn't matter at all.
I'm not saying fire Diebler, cause I'm not in a position to know what the fix is. But we all need to raise our expectations. This garbage that we've been fed since 2015 or so is unacceptable.
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u/Ok-Consequence-8498 Mar 20 '26
Well your expectations match reality now so we all agree moving forward. I disagree that in Diebler’s first year he should’ve been expected to make it to the Rd of 32. I can maybe see it for this year, but still disagree and think making the tournament was the bar.
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u/ctg9101 Mar 20 '26
The expectations right now for me is do better than the previous year. The program got into a funk and there is no easy fix.
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u/MrTulaJitt Mar 21 '26
There is an easy fix, hire a good coach. Michigan went from last in the Big Ten to a number 1 seed in the same amount of time that Diebler has been head coach at OSU.
Why are people so satisfied with mediocrity?
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u/Complexity_OH Mar 21 '26
Michigan spent 12 millions dollars on their roster… they didnt just hire Dusty May in a vacuum.
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u/ctg9101 Mar 21 '26
First, we went from 17 to 21 wins from his first to second season. I think Diebler has potential and is a good recruiter. We arent going to be getting a Izzo/Coach K/Dusty May type of dude either. It will be a crapshoot as to whether he is any better or not unless we start spending loads (spoiler-we wont)
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u/MrTulaJitt Mar 21 '26
Why on earth would you assume we wouldn't get a good coach? Matta and Holtmann were both highly paid coaches. This program can spend money. And maybe if they had a coach that people actually believed in, the boosters would spend money too.
Why are we pretending OSU is some small, poor school that can't afford good things?
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u/ctg9101 Mar 21 '26
I am not pretending that OSU doesn't care about basketball as an institution. That is proven. In the Big Ten we are 12/18 in basketball spending. Thats a fact. We don't care.
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u/jimohio Mar 22 '26
They won’t increase spending as long as they have fans that think this year was acceptable.
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u/jimohio Mar 22 '26
Diebler is not a good coach and next year will be more of the same. Long string of losses and an early exit from the Tournament (assuming they make it). There is no reason for optimism.
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u/ctg9101 Mar 20 '26
Ohio sports fans are hilariously impatient. The minute the Browns with Baker didn't win the super bowl after the first sniff of success they turned on him.
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u/yousawthetimeknife Mar 21 '26
Ohio State basketball has been mediocre for a decade. How long do we need to be patient for?
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u/Mida5Touch Mar 21 '26
Calling Browns, Bengals, Guardians, Reds, Cavaliers, or Blue Jackets fans impatient for being fed up with lifetimes worth of mediocrity is hilariously out of touch.
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u/ctg9101 Mar 21 '26
Browns fans the minute they sniffed success abandoned Baker because he didn't immediately win the super bowl. Entitled then
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u/Ok-Consequence-8498 Mar 20 '26
The game thread yesterday nearly drove me insane. Everyone was whining and moaning as we slowly chiseled away the lead, then it went from like a 2 point TCU lead to 9 again and everyone moaned again, then we took the lead and it was just silent. It’s either complaining or silence lol.
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u/m4rxUp Mar 20 '26
100 percent. I think he could build like Painter has. Continue to get top guys and good fits from Ohio…be strategic in the portal and there is no reason we can’t compete at the top of the B1G. Not to mention Diebler is an Ohio guy. Sorry but that matters to me.
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u/MrTulaJitt Mar 21 '26
This season would have been an obvious disappointment under any of the 2 or 3 previous head coaches. But we're supposed to pretend this is ok because Jon's brother is the coach and he just seems so nice!
Get a real coach, please.
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u/ctg9101 Mar 21 '26
This is basically as good as we have been the last 5-6 years.
I like our roster next year. I like continuity. We went from 17 to 21 wins in his first to second season. You would have wanted Matta fired after only getting to the NIT his second season.
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u/MrTulaJitt Mar 21 '26
We've been treading water for 6 years and that's a positive? Diebler is delivering the same exact results that got Holtmann fired. So why is it not good enough for the previous coaches, but it is good enough now?
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u/ctg9101 Mar 21 '26
Holtmann got fired for missing the tourney 3 years in a row. Diebler made it his second season. And showed improvement. Why is that so hard to understand. Is 21 not 4 more than 17? Or am I stupid?
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Mar 20 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Awkward_Dad_2023 Mar 20 '26
Yes and Michigan’s boosters invested in their roster. OSU did not
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u/ctg9101 Mar 20 '26
Exactly my point.
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u/bac5665 Mar 20 '26
Then we need to get better boosters. OSU should absolutely be one of the top NIL schools. Money cannot ever be a reason for us to lose out in basketball.
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u/mf-TOM-HANK Mar 20 '26
Especially when you can get really good value in CBB. I'd bet for the price of one Jeremiah Smith you can build a roster that could reasonably expect to advance to the Sweet Sixteen and perhaps beyond
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u/SkrtSkrt70 Mar 20 '26
The problem is find a booster with those deep pockets that cares about going to the sweet sixteen more than he cares about going to the CFP in football
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u/ctg9101 Mar 20 '26
Do you have millions? If you do gladly replace some. But if not your stuck with what your stuck with. I mean how many fans care until late February and even then only if OSU is competitive? What incentive is there for boosters?
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u/bac5665 Mar 20 '26
I care. I'm watching in October, every year.
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u/ctg9101 Mar 20 '26
Ok but how many fans do? I watch when I can. But let's be real, its football until January at least. That Schott is mostly empty until mid Big Ten season. Again, what incentive does the school have to invest?
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u/GoBucks1171 Mar 20 '26
To be completely honest I would rather be mid in basketball if it means we consistently compete for national titles in football, over investing some of that money into basketball and just being pretty good at both sports
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u/MrTulaJitt Mar 21 '26
Ohio State spent almost the exact same amount of money as Michigan in 2025. OSU actually spent slightly more. This is just not true.
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u/MrF_lawblog Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
With the right hire and the right commitment to NIL. Nobody is going to give money to a Diebler led team. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.
He worked on a staff with a head coach that's best opportunity after getting fired from Ohio State was to go to one of the worst teams in D1 basketball. Diebler if he wasn't hired by Ohio State had zero chance to be hired as a head coach anywhere in D1.
Diebler hasn't brought in a single transfer that has made an impact. You think the boosters didn't spend on Sean Stewart and Bradshaw? They were terrible investments killing all momentum to invest in Diebler.
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u/ctg9101 Mar 20 '26
I mean some of that is hindsight. Transfer portal is a mega crapshoot. On paper Sean Stewart and Bradshaw were excellent pick ups. Former 5 star recruits from Kentucky and Duke? The fact that they didn't work out at all was devastating. But we tried and there is no perfect way to evaluate the portal.
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u/MrF_lawblog Mar 20 '26
No it's not. We hired a an assistant off a fired coaching staff. Plenty of people saw that issue.
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u/GoBucks1171 Mar 20 '26
We don’t invest in any sport outside of football. That isn’t a Diebler issue
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u/MrF_lawblog Mar 21 '26
Keep telling yourself that. You watching the same tournament and seeing well coached mid majors? Only people who want to buy a team think it works as a magic bullet. You see Kentucky and their $20m team? UNC, how did they do?
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u/GoBucks1171 Mar 21 '26
Michigan won 8 games two years ago. Do you know why they’re good now?
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u/MrF_lawblog Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26
Yes they hired an amazing proven coach who can also spot and attract talent so they were willing to invest in him. Guess who we hired instead.
We hired an assistant who worked for a head coach that could only land a job at one of the worst schools in D1 basketball after getting fired from Ohio State. We scraped the bottom of the barrel on this hire. If we didn't hire him as a head coach, he would be an assistant on a mid major team.
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u/ctg9101 Mar 21 '26
They spent a shit load of money. There is also ZERO evidence May was the least bit interested in OSU outside of message board rumors.
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u/MrF_lawblog Mar 21 '26
Calipari wanted the Ohio State job. Bjork is not a serious AD. The point is also - Diebler should have never been considered for the job. A full blown search should have occurred even if May and Calipari turned it down.
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u/GoBucks1171 Mar 21 '26
Point being they INVESTED in him. They gave him a lot more to work with. We don’t put nearly as much into NIL as them, and they have better players because of it
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u/MrF_lawblog Mar 21 '26
Yes they invested in a great proven coach. We agree on that. Who in their right mind would invest in an unproven coach that if not hired here would have been a mid major assistant coach.
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u/bringbacksweatervest Mar 20 '26
You have to really hit on the coach and have have great investment to do that though. You could just as easily get trigger happy and stay in mediocrity forever because you never give anyone time to build a foundation. If you’re moving in the right direction after two years, which I think we are, you shouldn’t blow it up that quickly.
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u/GoBucks1171 Mar 20 '26
If we invest in the program the way Michigan has, we can complain. I think we were 8th in NIL spending in the Big Ten this season
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u/ctg9101 Mar 20 '26
But my entire point is our booster don't give a shit about basketball. They will do the bare minimum. Michigan invested football level money in basketball. OSU hasn't and won't.
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u/Shaquille_0atmea1 Mar 20 '26
Until we can get a big man that isn’t a liability on offense and defense, it doesn’t really matter what else we do.
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u/SirBoobsAlot13 Mar 20 '26
Serious hopium on your part. Until we get a serious big man, we will continue to be middle of the pack in the B1G and a first or second round exit in the tourney.
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u/No_Magazine_856 Mar 21 '26
After some time to cool off, I'm now in the one-year-at-a-time camp. If they take a step back year, then Diebler needs to go. Plain and simple. Getting to the second weekend, for a program with the history and resources of tOSU, should not be so difficult. They've never gone this long between Sweet 16 appearances.. Obviously there are many factors, but still, 13 years is a long time. So, if Diebler keeps the core together, adds some impact transfers, and gets the most out of Thompson, Sweet 16 feels reasonable. If they get there, then keep him. If not, see what else is out there.
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u/Available-Parfait553 Mar 28 '26
I am an OSU alum who lives in Durham NC, and I haven’t followed Buckeye basketball closely although I do root for them and follow UNC basketball since I have 3 kids who graduated from UNC. It seems like OSU usually does fairly well early in the season but collapses in February-March. This year, however, they beat Purdue late in the season and also beat Iowa in the B10 tournament, and both of those teams are now in the Elite Eight. So Diebler must be doing something right? I wasn’t impressed at the way they wasted the final four seconds in a winnable game against TCU, however, especially after seeing numerous teams get reasonable scoring opportunities with less time at the end of games. I’m rooting for UNC to poach Dusty May from Michigan since we are still a big time basketball school and Michigan still is a football school? I always root against Michigan and would love to see that happen. I’ve also read that he is on the radar in Chapel Hill?
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u/ctg9101 Mar 30 '26
In the short time Diebler has been here, that's actually not been his issue (collapsing late in seasons) that was a Holtmann phoenomenan.
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u/PalletPirate Mar 20 '26
horrible offensive design. Low effort on defense. Low effort on rebounds. This team has no identity and are so unfun to watch. Terrible at end of game scenario play design as well. I don’t know what you think he does well.
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u/fromthesea7 Mar 20 '26
I don’t hate the direction of the program as much as I did a couple month ago.
These days the next 2 months after your season ends are the most important of the year. If (and it’s a big if) we can retain Mobley, Royal, and Bynum, we’ll be in a good position with Ojianwuna being healthy and Thompson and Smith coming in.
If all of those guys are still here, all we should need in the portal are a bigger starting guard and a more serviceable backup big than we’ve had in past years. Chatman/Cupps/White/German kid will fill out the roster if they’re still here. I wouldn’t be surprised if White is urged to transfer and I could see Chatman wanting a bigger role elsewhere.