There are many things journalism school teaches you that, once you venture out into the real world, you realize are, if not complete misconceptions, at least slight ones.
Avoiding bias is one of those. You’re taught to be as fair and as balanced as possible, to eradicate personal emotions and report the truth. Even if sometimes, the truth is inherently subjective, found in the eye of the person watching an event unfold. That happens a lot in sports journalism, particularly. It’s how good narratives are shaped.
The truth is, as much as I’m not supposed to, I desperately want to see Ohio State basketball succeed. Jake Diebler is one of the best individuals I’ve worked with. If you know the guy, it’s almost impossible not to root for him. As much as I try to distance myself from my background and cover the Buckeyes objectively, I did still grow up in Ohio and was a lifelong fan before my journalism career started. An Ohio State University diploma stares back at me from a shelf as I write this story. My parents graduated from OSU. My brother will join my parents and me as an OSU alumnus in May.
Above all else, for my love of this job and personal sanity, I want people to care about this team. But after another late-season collapse and likely missed NCAA Tournament, apathy is the pervading emotion in the Ohio State fanbase – and one can’t blame any fans for feeling that way.
“It definitely hurts. I’m not finna fake my emotions,” star guard Bruce Thornton said after Ohio State’s first-round loss to Iowa in the Big Ten Tournament on Wednesday. “The more connected team just won. Iowa had a great game plan. They came out, when they made a mistake, they got it right back. So give credit to them. Certain plays, I just feel like we could have been better on – we just lost to a better team today.”
Another truth about my personal relationship with my profession is that I often despise and struggle to write negative stories. My lede and some of my language in the above-linked recap of the Buckeyes’ loss to the Hawkeyes may give the opposite impression, but there are many more optimistic stories I’ve written about the basketbucks the last two years, and that’s by choice.
But there’s no sugarcoating what happened Wednesday, what happened Saturday and what happened in the final month leading up to the Big Ten Tournament for Ohio State. The Buckeyes lost five of seven games to close the season.
Each of the past three years, long offensive lulls have cost them late in contests. In Saturday’s loss at Indiana with a chance to all but clinch a Big Dance bid, Ohio State didn’t make a field goal in the final five minutes and 55 seconds. Iowa took control of Wednesday’s game during a four-minute stretch in the waning moments, where the Buckeyes didn’t score a point.
“I think ultimately it just boiled down to, we had a couple of defensive breakdowns that were uncharacteristic of us. And they made us pay,” Diebler said after the loss. “You gotta give them credit. They made us pay. Showed some great fight to get back, had some opportunities there to tie the game, take the lead back, and a couple of empty offensive possessions.”
Thornton is another person it’s almost impossible not to root for in the program. His outing at Indiana was one of his lesser ones this season, but he did everything he could to will his team past Iowa, racking up 24 points. The only significant three-year veteran on Ohio State’s roster, he’s wanted nothing more than to see the Buckeyes play winning basketball. It’s why he’s a three-time captain.
Diebler, Thornton and crew are still holding out hope for an NCAA Tournament bid, but with a 17-15 record and bad final impression, even six Quad 1 wins and a NET ranking of 40th probably won’t be enough to get Ohio State into the field of 68.
“My first thought is just, make sure all my guys are alright,” Thornton said. “This is a hard loss, especially this first game. Next thing is this Sunday, see if we make the selection (for the NCAA Tournament). I don’t know what the future is gonna hold, but just make sure my guys are alright, make sure we’re all on the same page because we just don’t know.”
If and when they miss the Big Dance, it will be time for the Buckeyes to look at some hard truths about the state of their program.
I’ll get this out of the way first: Diebler will almost certainly be coaching the Buckeyes next year. Athletic director Ross Bjork didn’t sign him to a five-year contract just to fire him after one season. Bjork also said that Diebler is “doing a great job and really meeting our expectations” just one week ago, even if that was before the Indiana and Iowa games. And even though any comment supporting a second Diebler season got mass downvoted yesterday, I’ll join that group and say that year two is the time to make definitive judgments on the coach’s viability. Many reading this will disagree, and that’s fine.
Anyway, time to turn the attention to what will change after this season: The roster.
No one would blame Thornton for thinking of departing for a contender in his final year of collegiate eligibility. Fellow stars Devin Royal and John Mobley Jr. will also be tampering targets for the transfer portal. But even if Diebler keeps all three in Columbus, there are other major issues to address.
There’s no sugarcoating what happened Wednesday, what happened Saturday and what happened in the final month leading up to the Big Ten Tournament.
The idea of signing two five-star forward prospects last offseason wasn’t a bad one, but Aaron Bradshaw has, unfortunately, done little to suggest he can be a dependable center in the Big Ten. A seven-footer averaging a meager 6.5 rebounds per 40 minutes and 2.7 rebounds per game isn’t cutting it. He’s been a defensive liability for anyone who’s watched him play, and against the Hawkeyes, he missed three wide-open layups.
He’s shown the occasional offensive flash, but Ohio State needs to hunt for a bona fide big man in the transfer portal. Sean Stewart filled a nice rebounding and defensive role when not in foul trouble, but unfortunately, he was in foul trouble nearly every game. He averaged 3.4 personal fouls per game and fouled out of no less than seven contests.
Guard Micah Parrish, the only major success of Diebler’s first portal haul, is out of eligibility. A supreme lack of backcourt depth hurt the Buckeyes after Meechie Johnson Jr. played just 10 games and sat out the rest of the year. A lack of depth in general was ever-so-apparent as Iowa’s bench outscored Ohio State’s 27-3.
“Our depth was not as good as we needed it to be down the stretch, at times, of games,” Diebler said. “I think we got outscored significantly from the bench this game. But we got some guys who have had to adjust to roles and guys who are in new situations. And I think it's possible this specific game, we got a little fatigued down the stretch.”
Apathy will be a countermeasure to any roster reconstruction efforts. The NIL dollars needed to secure top talent are harder to come by when the fans don't care enough to meet expectations with money. But that's the state Ohio State's basketball program finds itself in.
Going against my professors’ wishes, I’m rooting for Diebler. I’m rooting for the apathy to lift and for fans to care about this program. But first, the Buckeyes need to give them something to care about on the court.
“We gotta get back to Columbus and sit down and kind of reflect and talk,” Diebler said. “I know there's a lot of unknown right now, so it's hard to make any firm, I guess, decisions on anything. We gotta wait and see what happens here in the next couple days.”
